an r&rsonal trohlema 



c n a 




Classic. __ 

Book + _S^5—- - 
Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Quiet Talks on 
Personal Problems. 



QUIET TALKS 
ON PERSONAL 
PROBLEMS 









BY 




S. 


D. 


GORDON 


Author of 


"Quiet Talks about Jesus," 


Quiet 


Talks on 


"Power," "Prayer" 






and 


"Service." 







NEW YORK 




z 


A 


. C. 


ARMSTRONG 


& 


SON 




3 &5 


West l8* h Street, near 5^ Avenue 






1907 










UBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

M4h 251907 

^^fiopyrtehl Entry 

"py "&; 



CLASS J{ foe' 



( 



Copyright, 1907, by 
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 

Published, March, 1907 

Entered at Stationer's Hal/, London 
[All rights reserved] 



Printed by the Publisher* Printing Co., New York, U. 3. A. 






CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Bit Ahead 7 

The Problem of Sin 9 

The Problem of Doubt 41 

The Problem of Ambition, or what is best worth while. . 77 

The Problem of Self-Mastery 97 

The Problem of Pain 125 

jLThe Problem of Guidance 151 

The Problem of the Church 183 

The Problem of Questioned Things 205 



A BIT AHEAD 



Life is a school. There are hard sums to do; 
new words to learn, and new meanings of words; 
knotty problems to tug at and solve, solve partly 
and then a little more. Knowing some gives 
zest for more; and always there is more, and 
never an end. Dear Doctor Babcock sang, 

" Some day the bell will sound, 
Some day my heart will bound, 
As, with a shout 
That school is out 
And lessons done, 
I homeward run." 

Yet the day he thought of, while it brought rare 
delight in knowing and resting, was simply his 
entering upon an after-course in the Teacher's 
own room. 

These talks are about some of the problems of 
life. They touch only personal problems, and 
only a few of them, and only some parts of these. 
They touch only problems and the phases of 
them that have come up in my own schoolroom 
work. That has seemed best. The men who 
have helped me most have been those who let 
me draw near, and peer in, and see something of 
their own struggles and victories, the moist brow 



8 A Bit Ahead 

as they tugged, the hard breathing under stress, 
and the glory-light that came afterwards. All 
truth must go through the testing fire of one's 
own experience before it catches fire in others. 

I am still working at these problems; still in 
the laboratory. At times a wondrous quiet light 
steals in to make it clear where it was dark and 
bothersome. Always there is a sense of the 
great Teacher's presence, and the restful thought 
that He knows by contact with things down 
here. That light gives great joy, and that 
presence great peace. 



THE PROBLEM OF SIN 



The Law of Sin. 

Six Sides of Sin. 

Seven Facts about Sin. 

Unloosing the Demons of Sin. 

The Logical Result of Sin. 

The Sinless Man. 

The Open Life-door. 

Sin Needs Double Treatment. 



The Problem of Sin 

The Law of Sin. 

The ugly face of sin pushes in everywhere. 
It has to be reckoned with by everybody. Sin is 
so ingrained in life that it is constantly being con- 
sidered. It is one of the most practical of all 
problems, and one of the most personal, too. 
If a banker is engaging a new teller to be trusted 
with the bank's funds he is obliged to think of 
certain phases of the sin question. If the man- 
ager of a great railroad is studying how to operate 
the vast system to the best advantage of his 
directors, and for the public's safety and con- 
venience, he is forced to study carefully the sin 
question, even though not from a moral stand- 
point. 

If a mother and father are eager for their child 
to be strong and pure and intelligent they need to 
know something about the law of life, and the 
results of disobeying it. If a man would live 
long and hold his vigor; if a maiden would re- 
tain her beauty and gentleness of spirit; above 
all, if one would live a life pure and strong, pleas- 
ing to God and helpful to his generation, the 
problem of sin must be thought about and 



1 2 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

grasped, at least in part. And the earlier and 
more thorough the thinking the better. 

In the English translation of an old Greek 
classic there occurs a remarkable sentence about 
sin. It is a strange little sentence of just six 
words, peculiar in its makeup and packed full of 
condensed vitality: "The wages of sin is death." 
There are no adjectives, nor adverbs, nor other 
such qualifying words. There are just three 
hard, knotty, disagreeable nouns, "wages," 
"sin," "death"; with only enough other parts 
of speech to hold these securely together. 

These nouns are the bones of the sentence; 
the other words the ligaments that hold the bones 
in place. There is no soft padding and round- 
ing of flesh. The intensity of suppressed feeling 
underneath comes out in the very shortness 
and sharpness of both the sentence and each 
of its chief words. There is not even enough 
stopping on the way to give any coloring to these 
three rugged, sharp-edged words. Each comes 
blurting out, goes straight to the bull's-eye of 
the target, and hits it with a sharp ringing noise 
— " The wages of sin is death." 

That is not true because it is written in this 
old Book of God. It is in the book because it is 
true. It had been written down in many other 
books before it found Paul's pen here. Any 
breaking of the natural order of life brings a 
penalty; and the penalty is always a death 
penalty. 

It has been written in the book of nature 



The Problem of Sin 1 3 

as with sharp chisel edge in flinty rock. In 
the State of Kentucky is a great cave. In the 
cave is a river flowing. In the river are fish. 
They are like other fish essentially with one ex- 
ception, they have no eyes. There is an eye 
socket. But where the eyeball should be there 
is instead the withered-up carcass of an eyeball, 
or none at all. It is a law of life that what we do 
not use we lose. All of nature's gifts are held by 
use. These fish did not use their eyes. In the 
absence of light they could not. And through 
lack of use persisted in for an untold length of 
time, they lost both the power of use and the 
organ of use. The wages of sin is death. Any 
breakage of a law of life carries with it a penalty, 
and that penalty is always a death penalty. 

That sentence has been written down very big 
with indelible ink in the book of nations. Years 
ago Spain was at the head of the great powers of 
the world. Her ships swept the seas victoriously 
and defiantly. But Spain as a nation broke one 
of the great laws of human life. It is a law of life 
written in the spirit of man that every man shall 
be free to worship God as he thinks to be right. 
Spain ruthlessly, with iron-clad fist, broke that law. 
She said to her sons, "You shall worship not as 
you think best but as I decree. ,, Her sons 
showed the inherent greatness of the nation by 
refusing. And Spain stained her soil with the 
blood of thousands of her best sons. And Spain 
died as a first-class power, a second-class, a third- 
class, and more yet. Her proud position of 



1 4 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

leadership was lost. Her death was by suicide. 
The wages of sin is death. Failure to obey the 
great simple laws of life contains in itself a sure 
penalty, a death penalty. 

It has been written, and still is being written, 
in the lives of men, with letters many times 
traced in a living red. The Wizard of the North 
in Great Britain, splendid Walter Scott, felt 
keenly the sharp edge of debt and financial dis- 
grace. He said imperiously to his great brain, 
"You shall pay these debts," and greatly it re- 
sponded to his whip. And the law of the body 
that sets limits to the work that may be done 
was broken, badly broken. And that great man 
began dying early, and that remarkable brain 
knew the death of its powers, before the last ebb 
of life had slipped from his body. The wages 
of sin is death. Disobedience of the law of life 
carries with it a knotted whip, whose cut and 
slash and sting always means a death of some 
sort. 

Six Sides 0} Sin. 

I ran through the Bible one time rather care- 
fully and found there six words used for sin. I 
found the word sin itself. Sin, the word under- 
neath our English, literally means missing the 
mark. Here is a shooting-target; a man stands 
with rifle up, taking aim; he presses the trigger 
and the little leaden bullet flies from the rifle's 
mouth, but it doesn't hit the centre of the target, 
the bull's-eye; it goes off into one of the rings 



The Problem of Sin 1 5 

or clear outside the target. That is the literal 
meaning of sin. It is failing to hit that at which 
you have aimed. Let me ask you, softly, have 
you ever done that ? Have you ever failed to hit 
the true mark of life at which you have aimed ? I 
do not say you have, and I do not say the mark 
that somebody else has set up for you to reach. 
But, just now, as you see things yourself, have 
you ever failed to reach the true aim of a true 
life as you have thought of it yourself? once? 
just once back there somewhere? Because if 
you have that is sin, and sin earns wages, and the 
wages of sin is death. 

There is a second word I found; the word 
transgression. It means simply going over a 
boundary line where you have no right to go. 
Here is a line at the side of your path. You have 
a right to be here in your own path. You have 
no right over beyond the line. There is a sign 
up, "No trespassing allowed." But you go over 
that line to the other side. That is transgression. 

May I ask you quietly, please — have you gone 
over the line in your conduct where you should 
not have gone ? I do not mean just now the line 
that others may have set for you. But as you 
saw things yourself, the line that you regarded 
as the proper boundary line for a true, pure life. 
Have you? once? You pulled back again, 
maybe; but as you look back there's a sure jog 
over the line there; it's dented in, over and back; 
two obliques, is that so ? I do not say it is ; but 
as you see things yourself? Because if it is so 



1 6 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

that is transgression; and transgression is sin; 
and sin earns wages; and the wages of sin, I 
regret to remind you, is death. 

The third word is iniquity ; that is, un-equity, 
not equity, not equal. It thinks of the path of 
life as a level, even-faced road, without any 
breaks- down, no sags, no inequalities; all parts 
evenly up to a standard level. Whatever breaks 
that even level surface is un-equity, iniquity. 
May I ask you again, softly, just for yourself to 
hear, as you look back over the road of your life 
thus far, how does it look to you ? Is there one 
sag-down back there? one place where it isn't 
plumb up to the level which you have thought of as 
the right level ? just one ? Maybe more than one ; 
but we are not talking about numbers just now, 
but about single facts; once so, did you say? Be- 
cause if it be so that one break-down back there 
is iniquity, and iniquity is sin, and sin carried 
with it a return, and, I am very sorry to say, that 
return is death. 

A fourth word I found in this strangely frank 
book is the word wickedness. Its old, first mean- 
ing seems to have been crookedness; that is, 
winding aside, turning away, falling back. It 
thinks of the path of conduct as a straight path 
without any curves or crooks or bends. To 
turn aside this way or that is wickedness. Would 
you kindly turn around for a few moments of 
steady looking? What sort of a line has your 
life made ? Is there any zig-zag in it ? any jog ? 
maybe "not much ,, you say, but some? any? 



The Problem of Sin ij 

a jog off once from the straight line? If so, 
that is described by this old word wickedness, 
and wickedness is sin, and sin is a wage-earner, 
and the wages to be paid in is, I much regret to 
say, death. 

The fifth word that pushed its ugly face up 
into mine in these pages is the word guile. Guile 
means sneakiness, snakiness, trickiness. It means 
being one thing inside, and trying to have folks 
who see only the outer side think you're some- 
thing else. It means putting clean white-painted 
shutters up around your life so folks may think 
that's what you are like clear through. How 
about that? Has the life always been a clear 
reflector of the motives and purposes within? 
If once back there somewhere there has been 
something of that sort, the intention to deceive 
another, that is guile, and guile is sin, and sin has 
wages, and the wages spells out the one word 
death. 

There still is another word used, a very strange 
word that at first flush may seem to many to be 
quite too strong, a sort of an extreme putting of 
the thing. It is in the Revised Version. Jesus' 
bosom friend, John, says "sin is lawlessness." 1 
It would sound a bit extreme to call some persons 
whom we know lawless; yet when the matter is 
sifted down to the controlling spirit within, 
underneath, that is found to be the accurate 
word to use. For all true law is the expression 
of God's will; all true law is the fine rhythmic 

1 I. John 3: 4. 



1 8 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

swing of God in action. And whatever is 
different from that, preferring our will to His, 
maybe in ignorance oftentimes of just how much 
that involves, that is against law, it is without 
law, and so lawless. May I ask you most softly 
yet — any of that in you? any preferring your 
own way when that dead-sets you against God's 
will? a little? Because however little it may 
seem in our thought of size, that is lawlessness, 
and lawlessness is the very seed of sin, and sin 
carries with itself a result, and that result is 
called death. 

Sin is not a disease, a moral disease, nor a 
misfortune, nor a weakness to be overlooked and 
maybe gradually overcome. It is an act of the 
will. When a man sets himself to do the thing 
that is not right, or to omit the thing that he 
should do, whether in imagination, or in his 
speech, or in action, that is the thing called sin. 

Seven Facts about Sin. 



Now this old sentence ties the word wages up 
tight to this word sin. There is a certain logical 
result of sin. It is put here in the simple commer- 
cial language of a man getting the proper return 
for his day's work. Regarding sin's wages there 
are seven simple facts to be noted ; simple indeed 
but terrific in what they involve. 

The first is this, that sin earns wages. Where 
there is sin there is a return coming back into the 
life where the sin is. There is a law of compen- 
sation in sin ; something is due and owing to the 



The Problem of Sin 1 9 

man who has sinned. The second fact is that 
sin pays wages. There is no defalcation here. 
Sin never is bankrupt. It pays. It has a full 
purse, a heavy bank account, and pays what is 
due. 

Sin insists on paying wages. A man may 
decline to receive. You may be quite willing to 
forgive the account, and call it square without 
any further exchanges. But there is always the 
other side to be reckoned with here, sin's side. 
It insists on squaring every account. Its books 
are kept with painstaking accuracy. 

I recall a man in an eastern city whom I knew 
well. He stood high in financial circles, in church 
and social circles for years. But all the years, as 
it afterwards proved, he had been untrue to his 
trust both in financial and in family relations. 
He staved off payment for long, and when the 
crisis came stood it off a bit longer with legal 
processes, but though there was delay the pay- 
ment was made finally. He had to receive what 
was due according to the law of men. Yet be 
it marked very keenly that the law of man's 
making which compelled him to receive what 
was due had and has very marked limitations. 
Man's law deals only with discovered sin, and 
then only when it can be technically proven. 
And such law can compel a man to receive only 
a certain portion of the due of wrong, according 
as men have prescribed. But sin itself is not so 
restricted. It deals with the actual thing known 
by the man who does it, and known only by him.. 



20 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Sin's payment works out insistently, per- 
vasively, irresistibly, even as a fire unquenched 
reaches every bit of space within the sphere of 
its activity. Sin insists on paying wages. This 
man's home was utterly broken up, his life 
companion suffered until her mental balance 
slipped, his standing among his fellows was 
wholly gone, his name was disgraced. When 
the gates of his prison-house were opened again 
for his bodily liberty, the stoutest of his chains 
refused to unloose and still held him in their cold, 
heavy grip. And yet when this much is said, it 
leaves the greater part unsaid. 

The fourth fact to mark is a tremendous fact, 
intense, dramatic, graphic, even poetic, if such a 
word can be used of that which is most grimly 
prosaic. Yet it must be used, for there is a 
peculiar swing and rhythm to sin's working here. 
It is this — sin pays its wages in kind. I mean 
that the pay is the same sort of stuff as the sin. 
That which returns into a man's life is of a piece 
with the sin that started the return movement. 
You remember that the old Hebrew, Jacob, was 
a herdsman, in earlier life working under con- 
tract with his uncle. When the settlement 
period came Jacob was not paid in gold or silver 
or notes. He received in pay the sort of stuff 
he was handling all the time, sheep and goats 
and oxen. He was paid in kind. That is the 
meaning here. 

Sin in the realm of the body brings a result in 
the body. The body is the open record of a 



The Problem of Sin 2 1 

man's life, to him who can read it. There the 
skilled physician or the skilled surgeon reads 
plainly the habits of the life. Sin against the 
law of mental life brings its sure return in that 
which effects the mental powers. Sin in contact 
with others brings a chain of results affecting those 
others, and in turn those whom they affect. And 
this is intensified in proportion to a man's rela- 
tion to the community or state or nation. It is 
terribly true that no man sinneth unto himself. 
Sin is the most selfish of acts. It beslimes to 
some extent everyone we touch, whether we be 
conscious or unconscious of that touch. 

This man Jacob knew bitterly the working of 
this old law of sin. He deceived his old father; 
he was deceived by his uncle Laban in the matter 
of his wife, and ten times over in the matter of his 
wages as herdsman. He wronged his brother; 
and his favorite son was wronged by his brothers, 
and that hurt the old man far more than though 
the wrong had been done to himself. He lied 
to his father; and was lied to by his sons. As a 
young man he used a kid in the heartless scheme 
to deceive his blind, aged father; and years after 
his sons used a kid to give good color to their 
attempt to deceive their father. The old man, 
broken in both body and spirit, knew with a bitter 
intimacy those last years that sin pays wages in 
kind. The sin breathes out its own spirit into 
the whole circle of one's life, and ever returns 
grown stronger to bother the man who first set 
it free and sent it out. 



22 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Unloosing the Demons of Sin. 

David committed a sin in secret. It was sup- 
posed to be unknown except to the one who joined 
him in it. Yet that lawless, utterly selfish act 
against the purity of life and of a home brought 
back big bitter wages. The frightful effects of 
it infected his own home, spread out into his king- 
dom, left his successor a horrid heritage, and has 
had a bad influence among men until this day, 
with the end not yet. The act itself was re- 
peated with cruel variation within the circle of 
his own family. It led to the inhuman dyeing 
of his own hands with faithful outraged human 
blood. And that act in turn was repeated with 
heartbreaking variation within the family circle. 

The man himself was badly hurt in more ways 
than one ; his sense of right as a ruler was badly 
blurred. His favorite son, tainted with the law- 
less spirit of his father's act, is received back into 
the home with no change of heart and with no 
rebuke for his conduct. That itself was a lawless 
act, hurtful to the son, and brought a very whirl- 
wind of lawlessness that almost disrupted the 
kingdom, and that left a debt of blood and of 
bitter memory that long years did not fully pay. 

The prodigal, received back into the home un- 
repentant, carried with him a hell of anarchy and 
suffering and heart-burnings. The violence that 
started in the king's heart, and slew one of his 
own sons, stayed not until his favorite son fell 
under its ruthless hand, and left the old father 



The Problem of Sin 23 

heartbroken. That first brief act let loose a horrid 
horde of demons. Sin has a frightful contagion. 
Ah! this old warrior king, with his splendid 
talents and great traits of character, learned 
with a bitter tenacity of memory that sin pays 
wages in kind. 

History tells of a certain portion of the world 
where two races were brought into intimate con- 
tact; a superior race and an inferior, and so 
remained for many years. The men of that 
superior race, taking advantage of their position 
of superiority, with many splendid exceptions, 
invaded the sanctity of the women of the inferior 
race, for passion's sake. And for long years, 
through successive generations, the daughters of 
those injured women have been debauching the 
sons of those men, until that bit of country has 
been made red with precious human blood, and 
wet with bitterest human tears. And deep in 
the very family fibre of life there is woven inex- 
tricably in, the truth that sin pays wages in kind. 

A fifth fact to mark is this : sin pays in instal- 
ments. The payments begin at once. The very 
immediate act of sin has in it the beginning of 
its results, and those results continue bit by bit, 
with a grimly patient faithfulness, at regular 
periods through the years. The human eye 
blurred by its own sin is not always able to see 
the results. The human mind dulled by its own 
decisions is not always keen enough to appreciate 
what is going on, until passing years pile up the 
results, and they are forced upon the attention, 



24 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

and gazed upon with wonder. And sometimes 
we hear talk about mysterious providences among 
religious folk, and of hard luck among others; 
but never a bit of suffering has come into any life 
but it could be traced back, were our knowledge 
full and our eyes keen enough, back step by step 
in regular logical sequence to some initial human 
act of wrong. 

The sixth fact should be coupled with the fifth, 
the payment is in full. There are no defalca- 
tions here; no settlement by agreement of fifty 
cents on the dollar. But dollar for dollar, and 
each full weight, and with full measure of cents, 
is paid. No amount of reluctance on our part, 
no attempt at shirking will make any difference. 
A man is very apt to grow generous here. He will 
forgive the account due him. He is even eager 
to "call the thing square." "No," this inexora- 
ble paymaster sternly says, "you will step up and 
receive the full stint of what has been earned." 

A French writer has described a scene in the old 
province of Brittany, that juts out into the sea on 
the west of France. A man was walking along 
the seashore on a bright afternoon enjoying the 
air and sea. Above the sky was blue, the sun 
shining, the air invigorating, and the view off 
very beautiful. And the man walks along 
leisurely, thinking only of the enjoyment of his 
surroundings. He does notice absent-mindedly 
that his feet sink into the sand rather much. 
Then they sink a little more, until he begins to 
think it strange; then all at once it flashes upon 



The Problem of Sin 25 

him that the tide is out, and he is in a bed of 
quicksand. 

With the instinctive dread of a native, he knows 
well what that means, and instantly turns in 
horror towards the mainland to escape. But his 
quicker, intenser movements make his feet sink 
in deeper, up to the ankles. He plunges madly 
this way and that, calling wildly for help. But 
there is nobody to hear, and the more he plunges 
the deeper he sinks. Now he turns to the left, 
seeking to find a footing beyond the edge of the 
treacherous bed of quicksand. And now franti- 
cally to the right, and now up towards mainland, 
but he only sinks down the deeper into the smooth, 
slippery sand. Now the sand is to his knees,, 
and now over his loins ; then its pressure crowds 
in about his vitals, while he stretches out his arms 
wildly and shrieks piteously for help, and the 
pressure is seen in the blood coming from mouth 
and nose and ears. And now only the head is 
above the smooth level of pretty sand, and now 
just a pair of glaring, blood-shot eyes, and now 
a tuft of hair. Then only a smooth stretch of 
pretty shining sand. And above the sky is blue, 
the sun shining, the air so fine, and the sea 
laughing. 

That is the working of nature's law. It is 
true alike of all her laws. Here it was the law of 
gravitation that ruthlessly, mercilessly, inexor- 
ably drew down the man who had given himself 
unwittingly over to its power. The same action 
marks this law of sin of which we are talking.. 



26 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Whoever comes within the sphere of its power 
will find it working in the same quiet, sure, merci- 
less way. Law knows no mercy. Oh! yes, there 
is a provision sometimes made in human law 
for certain days of grace in meeting financial 
obligation. But it simply means that, if the brief 
time allotted find you unready with the money, 
the house may be sold from over your head, and 
you left in the cold night unsheltered. That is 
surely great grace. 

Here in this old tale of the native of Brittany is 
an illustration of the working of law, the logical 
sequence of cause and result. With slow pace, 
bit by bit, with mercilessly sure tread the law of 
sin works out its logical way endlessly. Sin pays 
in instalments, but in full, with a final fulness 
beyond anybody's power to compute. 

There is a seventh fact to be noted here, that 
should be marked very keenly, and not forgotten. 
Sin is selj-executive. That is to say, every sin 
pays its own bills. Sin keeps an independent 
bank account and checks out all its own payments. 
And it can be said very positively that there is no 
result of sin except that which works out of itself. 
Yet that is terrific beyond the power of the imagi- 
nation to picture, or of words to tell. You may, 
if you choose to, leave God out of your thinking 
about this. Yet that does not affect the tremen- 
dous fact put down here. Sin has bound up in 
itself all the terrific consequences that ever come. 
The act of sin unlooses the demons bound within, 
and they do but carry out to the full what the 



The Problem of Sin 27 

man began. Sin works automatically. It is self- 
executive. 

The Logical Result oj Sin. 

This cold, calm, strange sentence says that the 
wages of sin is death. What is death ? There is 
no question much harder to answer. I can tell 
what it is not, and that will help to clear the ground 
a bit. It is not the passing of life out of the body 
merely. That is the thing we all think of first 
and most when death is spoken of. Yet that is 
a very small item, a mere detail of death, painful 
in itself, and with distressing results to those who 
tarry behind, but the smallest part of death. 
And death is not ceasing to be, cessation of ex- 
istence. That cannot be. A spirit does not 
cease to be and cannot, and man is essentially a 
spirit-being. Good were it for some men if death 
meant for them an utter cessation of existence. 

And it can be said with great positiveness that 
death is not arbitrary punishment meted out by 
God. God has sometimes been held up to criti- 
cism as a cruel, unfeeling sort of tyrant, taking 
pleasure in dealing out punishment to sinful men; 
not so much of late years as formerly, but still a 
good bit; always too much. Any is too much 
and a slander upon Him. We borrow our ideas 
of punishment from men, and among men pun- 
ishment is very largely arbitrary. That is, it is 
decided upon, chosen out to be inflicted upon the 
guilty one. A child in school disobeys some rule 
and perhaps persists in the disobedience. The 



28 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

teacher decides upon some punishment, either 
whipping, or detention, or extra work, or to be 
deprived of some privilege. That of course is 
arbitrary, discretionary, decided as the teacher 
judges to be best. A soldier breaks the rules of 
camp, or of the discipline of army life. His 
officer decides what punishment shall be inflicted 
upon him. A man is found guilty of an offence, 
and in most instances there is discretion with the 
judge to decide what punishment he shall suffer. 

Let it be said very plainly that death as a result 
of sin is not in any way like that. It is the logical 
result of sin. It is included in the sin. Sin and 
death are only different parts, or phases, or stages 
of the same thing. Sin is death begun. Death 
is sin finished, worked out to its conclusion. 
Sin is death in the green; death is sin dead ripe. 
Sin is the seed ; death is the fruitage of that seed. 
Death is the logical culmination of sin, the final 
stage. Death begins with the beginning of sin. 
All unsuspected by those standing by, the be- 
ginnings of the pallor of death have already come 
where sin is done. 

All unconsciously to the man committing the 
sin, the tide of life has already begun its faint, 
imperceptible ebb. All living men are partially 
dead. Death is a gradual state until finally com- 
plete. In its essence death is separation from 
God. All life is the breath of God. Sin is cut- 
ting one's self off from God. It is like gripping 
a man by the throat with tightening clutch until 
the breath of life departs. Sin is choosing to 



The Problem of Sin 29 

leave God out. The very act cuts off the source of 
life. The grammar of the verb to sin is peculiar 
to itself. It is this: present tense, to sin; first 
future tense, following instantly on the present, 
to suffer; in the second future tense the verb 
changes its form, it becomes a noun — hell. 

That hateful, ugly word hell, which the lips utter 
only by compulsion when they must, for the sheer 
pain of it, is simply the name given to the place 
where death reigns; where God has been ex- 
cluded. They who prefer to leave God out will 
gather together at some time by a natural moral 
affinity, or gravitation. The name used for 
such meeting-place in this old Book is that hurt- 
ing word hell. Hell is death's abode. God 
shut out, no life, death, death regnant — that is 
hell. 

Is there anybody listening here who has not 
sinned ? If so, I'll wait a moment for you to 
withdraw, please, for to-day's talk is not for you. 
We all seem to be staying in. Well, then, by our 
own confession, we are under the action of this 
law of sin. There is a death sentence written 
over every face here. Sometimes it can be 
plainly seen. Sometimes to our dim eyes there 
seems to be no suggestion of such a thing. But 
were our eyes keener to read spirit-lines and 
spirit-fact, we would find through the flashing 
eye, the clear ruddy skin, the firm rounded flesh, 
a distinct tracing of this strange thing called death. 

I have no doubt that many, maybe most, of 
these listening so kindly and patiently are mem- 



30 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

bers of the Christian Church. But as I run my 
eye over your faces I cannot say who are church 
members and who are not. And I am glad for 
the purpose of this talk to-day that I cannot. 
For this law of sin recognizes no such distinctions. 
There has been a thoughtless thinking, without it 
being said in so many words, that being within 
the secure walls of church membership shields 
one from the action of this law of sin. But that 
is not so. Whoever is thinking so, maybe half- 
unconsciously thinking so, is befooling himself 
here. This law of life which is a law of death 
applies fully wherever there is life, and — sin. 

Well, then, we are all under the action of this 
law and all under sentence of death, sin's logical 
conclusion. What can we do about it ? Of our- 
selves we cannot do a thing to relieve the situa- 
tion. The thing we need is life in place of death ; 
the utter cutting out of the seeds of death and the 
putting in of new seed, the seed of life, a new life. 
There are only three ways that anything can be 
gotten, that is, proper ways: by inheritance, by 
purchase, and by gift. We have lost our inheri- 
tance of life. It has been forfeited by our alli- 
ance with the one thing that is utterly opposed 
to life. There is not enough wealth in the vaults 
of London and New York, Paris and St. Peters- 
burg, nor in the mines, to buy any. The wealthy 
people are merely money-wealthy, not life- 
wealthy, so far as their gold is concerned. And 
we have none for ourselves, much less to give 
away. What shall we do? We are all in bad 



The Problem of Sin 3 1 

shape. It is a blind alley we are all heading up 
in. Would it sound any better, or less bad, if 
instead of "blind alley" I used a foreign word for 
it, cul-de-sac, and hid the ugliness of the truth 
behind that ? Better just use blunt old English, 
that the plain truth come more plainly, bluntly 
home. 

The Sinless Man. 



But here steps one upon the scene of life from 
another sphere — Jesus. By His own word, and 
by the frank confession of those who know Him 
most intimately, He is free from sin. The Jew 
who so foully betrayed, and the Roman who so 
unfairly gave sentence of death, agreed fully in 
this. Being without sin, He is not under action 
of this law. He steps on the scene. And in 
effect He says, "It grieves me to the quick that 
this great race of splendid men is in such bad 
shape." But mark you keenly, and let the truth 
here be said with the greatest reverence, not even 
Jesus the Son of God can change the working of 
this law of life. He came not to break but to 
fulfil. 

What can He do? This is what He did do. 
He went down, of His own voluntary accord, 
went down to where men's sin had driven man. 
He tasted death. Tasted ? aye, drained its dregs 
to a bitterness not known by any other before or 
since. He went down into the throat of death, 
into the mouth of hell, and seizing death by the 
throat throttled it, and then rose by the moral 



3 2 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

gravity of His own being up to a new life, a death- 
less life for all men. And now Jesus offers that 
new deathless life as a free gift to all who will 
accept it, and accept with it the conditions of life. 

But will you kindly note as keenly as you ever 
noted anything that there are three qualifying 
facts that belong in here. There has been a sort 
of a weak sentimentalism, common in some quar- 
ters, about salvation through Jesus, as though 
by some sort of legerdemain all the evil re- 
sults of sin were at once wiped out, and all the 
benefits of the new life come fully in by means 
of an assent to Jesus' offer of salvation. It does 
seem sometimes as though there were those who 
say, "We can do about as we please, indulge in 
sin as suits us now, and then after a while, — well, 
there's Jesus, He's loving; God is love, He is too 
loving ever to let anyone be lost. We'll just line 
up that way and pull through all right." I do 
not mean that I have ever heard anybody put it 
so bluntly, and baldly, and irreverently as that 
into words.' But I have surely heard a great many 
say it loudly with their lives. Better, maybe, if 
they had put the language of their lives into the 
language of the lips, that its very baldness might 
shock them into thinking of the truth. 

The first qualifying fact to note is this : accept- 
ing Jesus does not nullify nor neutralize the re- 
sults in this life of past sins. That man who lost 
his arm through a drunken debauch will remain 
so, without the arm, crippled in body and in 
activity to the end of the years. Those years 



The Problem of Sin 3 3 

absorbed in selfish pleasure-seeking are lost for- 
ever, and the mental strength that was not held 
and matured by earnest effort can never again 
be gotten. The grave of the past never gives 
up its dead, only their spectres to trouble and 
haunt. 

The broken home circle can never be restored. 
A new one may be made, but never the old. That 
saintly mother, grief-stricken in heart through 
somebody's sin, broken in strength and shattered 
in her years — that is not changed. There may 
be some softening of after-years, but the old deep 
scars upon heart and body and life are never re- 
moved. Time softens greatly where conditions 
are changed, but under all remains the old wound, 
and it pains sharply when a bit of damp weather 
comes. The man who through dissipation has 
depleted his vitality never will be, never can be, 
either in body, or in his mental powers, or in his 
spiritual perception and grasp, what he was meant 
to be, and would have been. The bird with the 
broken pinion never does soar as high again. Its 
broken wing has forever broken the strength and 
swiftness of his flight. 

The man may be fully forgiven, and blessedly 
changed, and wondrously used, but never can he 
be the man God meant, nor be used in service as 
he could have been had God had the use of his 
full, unstunted, unwasted powers. Selfishness is a 
spirit-paralysis. The powers never fully recover. 
The daily grubbing for gold, with no high spirit- 
motive gripping and sweetening, forges a finely 



34 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

woven network about all of the powers. And 
however the life may afterwards be surrendered 
to Jesus the hampering movement is never 
wholly gone. It has been rutted deep into the 
cellular tissue of the body. 

The heart may become wholly, blessedly pure, 
the motives and impulses all sweetly and fra- 
grantly cleansed, but the mark of the past is dented 
deep in the body, the energies, the activities, the 
outlook. This is the simple, sad, tragic truth. It 
should all be said in softest tone of lowered voice, 
for we are talking of our brothers; and said too 
with a hush of shame over the spirit, for we are 
talking about ourselves here together. But it 
should be said, very distinctly, with the words 
pronounced clear and sharp, that the process 
may be stopped instanter. 

Opening the Life-door. 

There is a second fact to be put in with hard, 
sharp emphasis. Life through Jesus comes only 
as fully as the opened door permits. You will 
note that I am not speaking of heaven, the after- 
life, but of this tremendous life we are living 
now. There is a truth here for the after-life, 
too, no doubt. The after-life will be shaped 
upon the life lived here. A man's life here be- 
comes the mould or standard for that great after- 
life. Of course this does not affect a man's 
salvation; the fact of it. But then, who is there 
who is willing to be saved by the skin of his teeth, 
pulled in at the end of a rope, without a covering 



The Problem of Sin 35 

rag to his life, barely in, breathlessly sprawling 
where he has gotten in! 

This new life through Jesus begins now as 
quickly as the spirit's door is opened to Him. 
It begins coursing through all a man's being. 
It affects all of his powers. It touches into new 
vitality and new beauty every gift with which 
man is endowed. But it can come only as it is 
allowed to come. The man's will always remains 
supreme in his life. Even when God's will is 
made supreme in a life, as it should be, it is by 
the imperial act of the man's own will. A man's 
will is never greater in action than when all its 
great fine-grained strength is used in yielding to 
God's will. A man can keep the door partially shut. 

Will it seem severe if I say that most men do? 
Yet the truth seems to force just that statement 
out into plainest speech. And a partially opened 
door means only partial life incoming, and 
partial death remaining. I remember an old, 
dear friend of mine, a splendid man in his strong, 
gentle spirit, a great leader among men, the great 
leader in the movement with which his life was 
and is identified. Yet he died when a man 
should be in the mature fulness of his powers. 
For certain habits of life common among men, 
not commonly regarded as wrong, and not wrong 
except as being against the law of life in the body 
— yet that is a great and grievous exception — 
sapped his vitality, and poisoned the body, and 
led to the death that should have been delayed 
for years. 



36 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

And as I speak of him I recall another great 
leader, in another sphere of activity in the re- 
ligious world, who slipped the tether of life when 
in the prime of his years, for like reasons. These 
men sinned against the law of their bodies. 
And that is sinning against the God of our bodies. 
God needs us and our strength. Whatever 
takes us away before His time, or takes away our 
strength, hampers God in His activities among 
men just that far. They sinned unwittingly no 
doubt, thoughtlessly, and yet there is apt to be 
a certain wilfulness in such thoughtlessness. 
Many men sin ignorantly. Yet such ignorance 
is a sin, for we can know and should know how 
best to live for the glory of God. 

Jesus' gift of life is both for the after-life, the 
eternal life, and for the present time. The present 
life affects far more seriously than we know the 
fulness of life in that after-life. Only as the door 
is swung fully open can Jesus give fulness of life 
here and after. Full surrender to the sway of 
Jesus, becoming in practice more really full as 
new light comes, is the open door to full life 
from Jesus' hand. Partial surrender means 
partial life. 

There is an exception to be noted here. Ful- 
ness of life does not mean absence of bodily 
death yet. For Jesus' plan of life has not yet 
been fully carried out. He is to reign until all 
enemies are put under His feet; then the last 
enemy, death, is to be put down, too, but not 
until then. Jesus' redemption will be com- 



The Problem of Sin 37 

pleted on His return. Meanwhile, with this 
exception noted, there is fulness of life through 
fulness of His sway within. 

Sin Needs Double Treatment. 

The third qualifying fact goes to the heart of 
the whole matter. It really has been said al- 
ready in another way, but should be put in again 
for the emphasis of repetition, and for the plain- 
est putting of it into words. It is this: there 
is one sin that even the blood — say it very softly 
and reverently — that even the blood of Jesus 
cannot cleanse away; that is, the sin, any sin, 
that J cling to. This is going to the very tap-root 
of the whole matter. His blood avails only 
against the sin that I break with, turn out of 
doors. Sin needs double treatment if it is to be 
thoroughly gotten rid of, first by the man who 
sins, then by that Man who never sinned; the 
first must use a sharp-edged knife, the Second 
will use a red stream, and then fire; the first 
must cut it out, and cut it off, so far as his will 
can do that, and it can do it fully; the Second 
will take away its guilt and power. 

Oh ! for a band of sin- fearers; men with a hor- 
ror and dread of sin in any shape, and under 
any guise; a band of sin-haters and sin- fighters, 
who will fight it tooth and nail, day and night, 
mercilessly, relentlessly, with all the power of 
loving tact and diplomacy, and all the rugged, 
immovable obstinacy of mountain rock; and 
who will give Jesus full entrance into their lives,. 



38 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

push the door clear back till its knob scratches the 
inner wall, that so He may come in full face with 
all His glorious flood tide of life. 

There's a simple story told of a longshoreman 
in Scotland. He was a rough, ignorant man, and 
a hard drinker. One night he went in an intoxi- 
cated condition to a mission hall, intending to 
make a disturbance and break up the meeting. 
But a tactful Christian gentleman came and sat 
down by his side and began talking with him. 
He quieted down and listened. Then the two 
kneeled in prayer. And that strange thing, 
called in religious talk conversion, must have 
taken place, for when they rose from their knees 
he was evidently a different man. There was a. 
new look in his face, a changed spirit looked out 
of his eyes, and his manner was gentle and 
deferential. 

In a voice affected by the deeper feelings 
within he thanked the gentleman, saying he must 
go home and tell his wife, and went out. As he 
entered his home his wife was just going up the 
stairs with their son to put him to bed. He 
called to her, "Come down stairs, lassie, with 
the lad; I've been converted; we must have 
prayers in our house." And she muttered aloud, 
"Hehh! drunk again 1" But hesaid, "Nay, nay, 
lassie, I'm na drunk; I tell you I've been con- 
verted; bring down the lad, and we'll have 
prayers." And wondering in her heart what 
had come over her husband she came down, and 
the three of them knelt on the bare floor to pray. 



The Problem of Sin 39 

But he didn't know how to pray. He never 
had prayed. His lips didn't know any word of 
that sort. And the situation was getting em- 
barrassing. There they are, the three, kneeling 
in silence, the sleepy boy wondering, and the 
awed wife wondering, and the man himself 
wondering what to say. Then like a quick flash 
he remembered how they had done in the city 
years before when the Queen had been there. 
And as that come to him, he picked his knit 
cap from his head and, whirling it in the air, cried 
out with an earnest, reverent cry, "Hooray for 
Jesus! hooray for Jesus!" Then they went to 
bed. 

When I realize how Jesus came down here, and 
stepped into man's place, and bore a death that 
naturally would not have come to Him, I feel like 
uncovering head, and heart, and will, and with 
the deepest reverence of love, repeating the long- 
shoreman's prayer, "Hooray for Jesus." 

The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of 
God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 



THE PROBLEM OF DOUBT 



Perplexed Searchers. 

Taking away a Cripple's Crutches. 

Sure Marks of Honest Doubt. 

The Best Book on Christian Evidences. 

The Spirit of Search. 

The Book. 

The Man. 

The Call of the Christ. 



The Problem of Doubt 



Perplexed Searchers. 

At one time I used to meet frequently, for a 
short while, at a hotel dining-room table, a 
bright young college man who was well informed 
and attractive. One day he introduced the sub- 
ject of religion. He doubted the divinity of 
Jesus, or rather he said he did not believe that 
He was divine. Again, he as openly said that 
he did not believe the Bible. I said to him as 
gently as I could, so as not to seem to be arguing, 
that I presumed he had examined rather care- 
fully into these questions on which he expressed 
himself so positively. To my surprise he calmly 
admitted that he had not. He had not given the 
Bible one careful reading through, neither had 
he examined the facts about Jesus. When I 
mildly expressed some surprise at his willingness 
to give such a positive opinion regarding matters 
that he had not examined he did not seem con- 
cerned, but rather to enjoy restating his opinions. 

When the conversation turned on other sub- 
jects, especially those connected with his pro- 
fession, he seemed quite cautious about express- 
ing an opinion except where he had fully informed 

43 



44 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

himself. As we talked, there would come 
creeping into my thoughts unbidden a certain 
subtle feeling that he thought as he did because 
he wanted to. It suited his purpose, or his way 
of living, or for some reason he preferred to 
think as he did, and so he did think that way. 
It was an extremely handy way of fixing up one's 
opinions to suit one's wishes. 

This man was not a doubter. That word 
implies perplexity, questions, a desire to know 
what is true. This man did not seem perplexed, 
had no question to ask, and was not seeking for 
anything. He plunged at once to the conclusion 
that seemed to suit his purpose or desire, and 
there he calmly stuck. I seem to have met quite 
a number of his clan. This talk about doubt, let 
me say frankly at once, is not meant for such as 
he. It is meant for those who are, as I was, 
perplexed about the reason for the great verities 
of life and faith, and being perplexed seek to 
learn at first hand for themselves the reason for 
things. 

In contrast with that incident, many a time a 
young man or a young woman in college has 
sought an interview, and with eager face has told 
of the sore perplexity that has come in study, 
regarding some of the old sacred truths learned 
first at a mother's knee. And as I listened I seemed 
to read between the lines the story of a mental 
awakening, a brain bristling with interrogation 
points as to "the reason why," the earlier habit 
of thought shocked to find such questions arising 



The Problem of Doubt 45 

about such sacred things, but the questions in- 
sistent; withal an earnestness of purpose to find 
the truth that was to me fascinating. Then 
would follow the quiet talk together, sifting be- 
tween essentials and non-essentials, bringing in 
fuller information sometimes, getting facts into 
clearer, broader perspective, and getting hold of the 
keynote of all such research, then a bit of soft, quiet 
prayer together, and then the pleasure of seeing 
the steadier step, the returning peace of spirit 
as the fellow went back to his study, and back 
to a life controlled by truth. 

These latter were the true doubters ; they were 
wavering in their thoughts; they questioned old 
opinions in the face of facts new to them; they 
were earnestly and actively seeking for informa- 
tion; they watched for every opportunity to get 
new light; they were not content to rest in their 
doubts but were bent on -finding the truth. It is 
with such, and for such, that this present simple 
talk is intended. It is not meant for those who 
want to doubt. There comes a time in the life 
of every one who wakens up mentally, when that 
awakened mind asks that the great truths of life 
come up to the bar of his reason, and prove their 
right to be accepted. 

To think is to doubt ; that is, to be perplexed, to 
question, and sift into the reason for things. To 
think more is to doubt less. To think clearly 
through is to find the truth. Enough truth can 
always be found to rest upon while more is coming. 
The great truths that are used to shape and con- 



46 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

trol the life, and bring peace to the spirit, are few 
and simple. One never finds all of the truth. 
It is one of the delights of living to be always 
finding more of truth. This, too, will be one of 
the great delights of the upper after-life. There 
will always be the zest of rinding new treasures. 

Some people never doubt because they never 
think. Of course, I mean, think for themselves 
into the reason of things. Some people never 
doubt, for they live in that sweet, peaceful atmos- 
phere, made by their elders or others who have 
doubted, and thought, and thought through, and 
now rest upon the rock of found truth. Some 
people never doubt because they have doubted, 
have searched and sifted, and found enough truth 
to rest upon, and to control their lives. These 
latter are the real leaders of thought here. They 
are still learning, studying, questioning, but the 
element of perplexity has gone. They rest in 
what they have found, as they eagerly search for 
more. 

Taking away a Cripple's Crutches. 

There are two sorts of doubters ; those that are 
not doubters at all but like to be so called, and 
then the doubters that really are doubters. To 
mark these real doubters off clearly the word 
honest should be used — honest doubters. That's 
a bit hard on the others, but still it seems to be the 
word to use because of its honesty. A true man 
does love to be honest. It's one of the touch- 
stones of manhood. 



The Problem of Doubt 47 

The first sort is not really entitled to that good, 
wholesome word "doubter," but they insist upon 
using it, so let that go. The more accurate word 
to use for them is quibblers. When they search 
it is simply for something that will bolster up the 
opinion they hold. They find fault with Chris- 
tianity. They pick out the flaws and faults of 
Christian people — and there are surely enough 
to pick out — and seem to take pleasure in pointing 
them out. They gather up the arguments and 
statements of others, and freely pass them out 
without finding if they are really trustworthy. 
They seem to listen to the other side only to study 
how to answer it. 

These quibbling friends are fond of argument; 
that is, they are fond of that sort of argument 
which is a sharp crossing of swords to see which 
can outdo the other; the keen, sharp passage of 
words and measuring of statements to see which 
can come out ahead. Such duelling, it can be 
positively said, though very common, never helps 
and always hurts. The men who indulge in it 
are usually seeking to defend their own position, 
which often means to defend their own intellectual 
keenness. No earnest man in the thick of life 
has time for such discussion. It does but react, 
however unconsciously, upon a man's beliefs, and, 
worse yet, upon his ability to see a fact colorlessly, 
to weigh what comes without prejudice, and so to 
get the help of knowing the truth. 

There is a story told of Henry Ward Beecher 
and a certain gentleman who was very widely 



48 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

known for his eloquence and for his scepticism. 
It was at a social gathering of a group of brilliant, 
intellectual men. The sceptical man had, as 
was his wont, taken occasion to make ugly flings 
at the Christian religion in his usual keen, elo- 
quent way. Beecher listened with the others. 
After a pause he broke in abruptly by telling of 
a scene he said he had witnessed that day on 
one of the streets of New York. 

It was a rainy day, with the streets in bad shape. 
A badly crippled man was hobbling painfully 
along on his crutches, picking his way over the 
crossing of one of the busiest thoroughfares, when 
a strong, burly man came roughly along, and 
rudely ran into the cripple; the poor fellow's 
crutches slipped this way and that, and he fell 
a-sprawling in the soft slime of the street. But 
the strong man, instead of apologizing and help- 
ing him up, laughed coarsely at the poor fellow's 
plight, and kept on his way. 

As Beecher told the story in his own inimitably 
vivid way the company present expressed their 
disgust with such conduct, the sceptical man 
heartily condemning it. Beecher looked him 
full in the face and said slowly, "Thou art the 
man: we are all crippled by sin; Christianity 
is helping us find our way along the road of life, 
even then a painful, hobbling way; you come 
along ruthlessly and knock out the only help we 
have to hold us up and steady our steps, and 
offer nothing better, but leave us sprawling 
hopelessly in the mire." With his great keen- 



The Problem of Doubt 49 

ness Beecher had characterized the whole class of 
sceptics, unbelievers, whose whole pleasure seems 
to be in telling what they do not believe, and in 
disturbing those who do honestly believe some- 
thing. 

It is not pleasant to say so, but it is very much 
to be feared that much so-called doubt is merely 
a sort of cloak for something else, and that 
something else a thing far worse and meaner than 
the doubt. The word doubt has quite an in- 
tellectual flavor. It seems to suggest mental 
strength. It makes a fine cloak. Its ample 
folds and soft gray color can cover up very much 
within. It is quite apt to be an intellectual 
covering for some very unintellectual, very 
common, and very coarse habits. Scratch some 
self-styled doubters and you will find ugly, selfish 
sinners. Let such friends remember and not 
forget that there is no necessary connection 
between selfishness and doubt, between sin, just 
common, plain sin, and intellectual diflculties. 

Some Marks 0} Honest Doubt. 



Then there is the real doubter. He is not ab- 
sorbed in what he does not believe. No true 
doubter ever is. He is concerned about finding 
out what should be believed. He is digging for 
facts. He carries a sifter and attempts to separ- 
ate the mere husks from the wheat-hearts. There 
is the throwing aside of much that comes of course. 
But this is merely incidental with the honest 
searcher. His eye and thought are on the kernel 
4 



50 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

of fact. No serious, thoughtful man allows him- 
self to give his strength to declaring what he does 
not believe, except incidentally for an immediate 
purpose. He centres thought and strength on 
what is plainly true, on what must be believed. 
And as that is held sharply up to view the other 
falls away. The best way to get rid of error is to 
hold up the truth. Darkness goes when the sun 
rises. 

The honest doubter is a wholesome man to meet. 
He is not trying to trip somebody up, but to get 
a sure footing for himself . He never attacks. He 
inquires. He is always seeking for light. He 
goes about with his eyes and ears more open 
than his mouth. It is opened chiefly to ask 
questions, real questions that seek information. 
He welcomes truth from any quarter, and con- 
tributions to one's stock of truth sometimes come 
from most unlikely quarters. 

There is another sure mark of this wholesome 
man; he will admit himself wrong when new 
light shows that he is. That is always a hard 
thing to do, nothing is much harder. It makes 
a severe mental wrench many a time. It wounds 
one's intellectual pride very sorely. Many a 
man's growth is stunted and stopped at this 
point. For refusal to admit the light that comes 
has a peculiarly stupefying effect upon the mind. 
The honest doubter honestly admits to himself 
that he was wrong in his former conclusions, and 
then he will admit it to others. Such admission 
reveals the really great man. He is not half so 



The Problem of Doubt 5 1 

much concerned about whether his views have 
been right, as he is to get right now. And he 
knows that nothing clogs up the road to truth 
like misconceptions of truth, or positive wrong 
— untruths. 

And then the final test of the real, true doubter 
is this, that as light comes he will allow it to 
govern his habits, his life. Here is the test that 
drops many a man out of the ranks. The sharp 
tug-of -war comes at this point. For it is an essen- 
tial of finding truth that the spirit and habit of 
life be made to fit what is found. That may mean 
very radical changes. It may cost friendships, 
and income, and standing. But that will not 
deter the true man, for he is honest first of all. 
For mark you keenly, the great truths are the 
moral truths. They concern the life we are living 
now, and to live always. The great test of truth 
is its effect upon the life. Truth itself affects 
life. It pushes away the artificial, the false, 
the wrong, and, breathing as a soft warm south 
wind upon life, brings out its strength and fra- 
grance. 

Jesus spoke a word about this that states a 
great law quite apart from His immediate use 
of it: "He that is willing to do . . . shall 
know." It is a characteristic of the great truths 
that they attack what is contrary to themselves, 
what is wrong. Truth is aggressive. It points 
out with unflinching finger the wrong, the untrue, 
the false, the sin. It insists upon a man's life 
measuring up to its requirements. Its voice is 



52 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

distinct and sharp, although most quiet. It in- 
sists on being heard. The only way to get rid 
of that voice is to shut up the ears. And then the 
poor fool of a man hasn't changed the voice nor 
stopped it. He has only cut himself off from 
hearing it ; but not cut himself off from the result 
it is announcing to him. Truth is always asking 
a man to do something. To him who obeys it 
becomes an open book in big, plain type. He 
that is willing to do shall know. Obedience 
leads to a university degree in the highest knowl- 
edge. Knowledge of truth lies only along the 
path of obedience, with most at the farther end. 

Christianity owes much to honest doubt. There 
was a doubter in the original group of twelve men 
who stood closest to Jesus. And there is pretty 
sure to be found one who has doubted, or who 
doubts, wherever twelve thoughtful men gather. 

Jesus' attitude towards the first doubter is won- 
derfully cheering and helpful. He didn't chide 
nor find fault. He welcomed personal investiga- 
tion. In earnest tones He said, "Reach hither 
thy hand; find out for yourself; know by the 
feel that it is I myself who was dead and now am 
risen." 

Thomas accepted that invitation. He re- 
vealed his sincerity and earnestness. He came 
where he was likely to get light. He was a true 
doubter, honest in his perplexity, looking for light, 
and when it came frankly admitting that he had 
been wrong. To every thoughtful, honest doubter 
comes that same warm, eager invitation from 



The Problem of Doubt 53 

Jesus' lips, " Reach hither thy hand; find out for 
yourself." A true doubter never settles down in 
his doubts. He asks questions. But he asks 
them to get information ; not to puzzle somebody 
else, and never for the sake of arguing, and never 
to prove himself right. 

Much scepticism is an extreme mental pro- 
test against the extreme statements of religious 
teachers. One extreme always draws out an 
opposite extreme. Both men are extreme and 
therefore both in part wrong. The angle of 
vision is not the correct one for clear seeing. 
But let not the man at the sceptical extreme 
think to excuse his position, nor to rest in it 
because the other man is extreme too. A man 
should seek for truth, and not be held back by 
somebody's extreme statement of it. The earn- 
est man does seek for truth, not that he may com- 
bat the other man in his wrong view of it, but for 
the sweet peace of knowing truth, and the yet 
sweeter peace of living his lije in its clear light. 
No man is justified in staying at one extreme 
because somebody else is at the other. He is 
hindering the truth itself, and, worse, is hindering 
some other man who is hiding behind him. 

The Best Book on Christian Evidences. 

All men are controlled in their thinking either 
by prejudice or by conviction. Prejudice is pre- 
judgment. It is reaching a conclusion before 
getting all the information there is to be gotten. 
Conviction is matured judgment formed after 



54 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

getting and weighing carefully all available in- 
formation. All men are influenced to some 
extent by prejudice. I suppose a really unpreju- 
diced, unbiassed man cannot be found. There is 
always that in his training that influences him for 
or against, quite apart from his reasoning powers. 
There is nothing harder to overcome than pre- 
judice, especially early prejudice, that coloring 
that has come through home surroundings, cir- 
cumstances, schooling, companionships, and 
friendships. It can be overcome. Yet no task 
is more difficult. 

I was a guest once in the home of an old family 
of New England stock, and from my host got this 
story. He was a civil engineer, a man of mature 
judgment, and like the old, typical New Eng- 
lander gave a large place to facts, without much 
play to imagination. As a boy he had a boy 
friend who later became a lawyer, an orator, and 
one of the best known lecturers on infidel subjects. 
The father of this boy friend was pastor of one of 
the churches in the village. He belonged to a 
certain old type of ministers whose preaching 
was of a stern, logical, unsympathetic sort, and 
his home life was sadly in keeping with it. A 
hard, hot temper, a domineering spirit, rank 
selfishness, did not make a very lovable sort of 
man in the home. For months before this boy 
was born into that home his mother was in bit- 
terness of soul. Her daily experiences led to 
much bitterness, rebellion, doubts of God's love, 
and grave doubt about the Christian faith. And 



The Problem of Doubt 55 

in such an atmosphere her son was conceived 
and born. 

That was a terrible birthright for any one to 
overcome. Yet mark you keenly, it could have 
been overcome, even though its tinge might re- 
main over all the lif e. Where there is the earnest, 
seeking spirit, any bent of early prejudice can 
be practically overcome, even though its finger- 
marks may remain. 

Let it be understood at once that Christianity 
has counterfeits. That fact helps greatly in 
believing it. Could it have a greater compli- 
ment than a counterfeit ? The counterfeit em- 
phasizes the value of the real. Nobody ever 
tried to counterfeit a piece of common brown 
wrapping-paper. It is the finely engraved govern- 
ment bill or bank bill that is counterfeited. And 
let the other fact, the sad fact, be put down too, 
that Christianity must not be judged by some of 
its followers, indeed by many of its followers. It 
must indeed be judged by its influence upon 
men's lives. And from that test it has no reason 
to shrink, for the most enlightened nations, the 
strongest nations, are those that have been under 
Christian influence. 

And there are countless instances close at hand 
everywhere of individual lives wholly and beauti- 
fully transformed under the influence of the Gos- 
pel of Christ ; indeed miraculously transformed, 
so sharp is the change from old to new, with no 
explanation other than that of the power of God. 
One single instance of that sort is quite enough 



56 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

to prove the living power of God. One Jerry 
McAuley or one Samuel Hadley is the best vol- 
ume on Christian evidences to be found. 

That there may be found many selfish, worldly 
Christians does but indicate how many un- 
anchored people there are that are swept along 
by the tide of their times. Christianity is the 
popular religion of the western world. Entrance 
to much society is through the church door. 
And many who have been and are true in their 
attachment to it have not the strength of character 
to rise above the prevalent type of Christianity 
by which they are surrounded. Christianity has 
been severely wounded many times in the house 
of its friends. All this should make the honest 
doubter the more eager to get to the fountain- 
head of the stream. Jesus stands the test of any 
examination. To Him one should go who would 
know. 

The Spirit of Search. 

The searcher for the truth should mark keenly 
that the result of his thinking and study will de- 
pend wholly upon two things: the way he goes 
at it, and the reason he has for going at it at all. 
The way he goes at his study will very largely 
decide what he will get. He needs to have a 
candid, open spirit. He should try to be unbiassed 
as far as possible, neither for nor against. In- 
deed he must go a bit further than this; there 
should in fairness be a spirit of sympathy with 
that which he is investigating or judging. 



The Problem of Doubt 57 

This is the true critical spirit. The expert in 
sculpture in examining a bit of work seeks to 
discern the purpose of the chiselling artist. He 
tries to put himself at one in spirit with the work- 
man, so as to see the thing from his standpoint 
and judge accordingly as to the success and skill 
shown. He may find faults and lack of skill and 
finish, crudeness of conception and of workman- 
ship, but he approaches his criticism from the 
artist's standpoint. 

The same is true of all proper criticism, whether 
of a painting, of a book, or of a piece of art needle- 
work. The critic approaches not to quibble nor 
find fault but to get in touch with the artist's 
conception and ideal and then judge of his work. 
This must be the spirit here. One should be not 
disposed favorably nor unfavorably, but seeking 
to put himself in warm, sympathetic touch with 
the subject and its ideals to judge accordingly. 
Now I do not suppose that anyone ever filled 
out fully such requirements, but if he faithfully, 
honestly tries to he will get just that much nearer 
to the truth. 

Then the reason why a man goes at such study 
will determine largely what he will get. And there 
is just the one great purpose worth while, and that 
is to have the life made true and strong and beau- 
tiful. Life is too serious for one to be satisfied 
with less than this, or to spend time for a less 
high ambition. There is satisfaction in getting 
to understand truth and the reason of things, a 
mental satisfaction, but this is incidental. The 



58 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

great, throbbing passion of a true man is to have 
his life true and pure, strong and fragrant. To 
know more than we weave into the daily fibre of 
life is to add to our own self-reproach in the 
coming days. It does but brew a bitterer drink 
for the later years' drinking. 

But if a man ring true here, if there be the 
simple strong purpose to put every truth to the 
test of living, and to test the life mercilessly by 
whatever truth comes, and hold it up to that 
standard, then — let me say it very deliberately — 
that man may throw away all his old teachings, 
his mother's Bible and all that goes with it, if he 
can trust himself to hold steady to this purpose 
as he examines what comes up. 

Our searching friend can go a step further yet. 
Let him begin by believing nothing. But let him 
suppose there is a God. And all the innermost, 
deepest yearnings of his soul within and all the 
marvels of the universe without make that a very 
easy and natural supposition. The simplest 
philosophy would argue that there is no power 
apart from personality. Power may be plainly 
seen and felt without the personality behind it 
being seen. But in all the world of research, so 
far as men have been able to sift through to the 
very bottom, there never yet has been found 
power of any sort without a person being behind 
it somewhere. And all around us in life, in nature, 
is tremendous, immeasurable, incalculable power 
being seen. So that from the inner yearnings, 
the swing of the worlds, the workings of nature, 



The Problem of Doubt 59 

it is easy and natural and philosophical to sup- 
pose a marvellous being back of all that we see 
and feel. 

Suppose then there be a God. What sort of a 
God would we prefer Him to be? Well, at least 
five things can be said of the God we would pre- 
fer to have: He would be pure, and powerful; 
He would be just, and loving; He would have a 
plan for His creation and for my life. How 
would such a God feel towards the men He had 
made? He would surely want to communicate 
with them, and tell His plan, and take great 
pleasure in their affairs, and in their realizing in 
their lives His plan for them. 

Well, here is a Book that is distinct from all 
other books, that from end to end claims to con- 
tain just such a communication. And here is a 
Man, the central figure of this Book, before 
whom all men have instinctively bowed in rever- 
ence, who said that He came from God for the 
one purpose of letting men know about God. 
This clears the ground for the man who wants 
to know for himself. He will set himself to ex- 
amining this Book, and this Man. 

As he takes up the Book how shall he feel tow- 
ards such a God as there may be ? What should 
his attitude be towards Him? It would surely 
be one of reverence, loving reverence, of intense 
desire to be like Him, and to have His plan of 
one's life made fully real. And more, there would 
be an intense longing that He would reveal things 
personally. In such search I would naturally 



60 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

want to communicate with Him and ask Him to 
reveal Himself to me, and help me to come into 
such contact with Him that I could receive His 
revelation of Himself. 

But how can I communicate with Him ? Well, 
how do I communicate with others? In two 
ways: by words telling what is in my mind, and 
without words. I look in the face of my familiar 
friend, with whose spirit I am in full sympathy, 
and I know very often the thoughts of his mind 
before he utters them. I can glance at my wife 
in a group of friends and let her know without 
speaking a word what I am thinking and get her 
answer. We are all constantly communicating 
with each other without using words. We are 
revealing our inner thoughts to others in words, 
and without words. 

Then we are getting accustomed to distant 
communication without any material thing, even 
such as a wire, to connect the two talking. There 
is a certain sympathetic contact expressed through 
mechanical contrivances that are in touch. Per- 
sons completely out of sight of each other, with 
miles between separating them, can intelligently 
communicate and exchange their thoughts with 
each other without any material connection be- 
tween them. So we have grown accustomed to 
communicate with those we cannot see, and to 
receive replies. 

With such a God and such men desiring to 
know Him, it would be quite natural for them to 
speak to Him in words, and to speak when no 



The Problem of Doubt 61 

words can express the thoughts; and, more, to 
be conscious of His sympathetic response. The 
common word for this sort of thing is prayer. 
With this to be said, that very many who pray have 
not become skilled in receiving the sympathetic 
responses. 

It would be natural therefore in beginning the 
examination of this Book, and this Man, to bow 
in reverence, and ask such a God as there may be 
to reveal Himself and His truth, and all the study 
and thinking would naturally be done in this 
reverential, prayerful spirit. 

A word of caution should be put in here. There 
is a very common tendency with all of us to get to 
a conclusion too quickly. We are all apt to form 
judgments before all the facts attainable are in. 
The common fever of life affects us here as else- 
where. W T e are quite apt to make up our opin- 
ions too quickly, without a broad enough out- 
look on the facts, and without weighing each fact 
duly. Facts are like men, their true worth can- 
not be told by counting; they must be weighed. 
And weighing always takes more time. It is 
easy to keep tab on the statements that come 
along; but to sift them thoroughly so that the 
non-essentials fall away, and leave the essential 
element standing alone, takes more time; indeed 
more time than many seem disposed to give. 
And then to put the essential element, this real 
nut-heart of truth, into the scale and hold steady 
and quiet enough, so the scale can balance ac- 
curately — that takes time and steadiness of temper. 



62 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

And it takes isolation too. There is so much 
jarring of trains overhead, and electric cars on the 
level, and tunnelling beneath the surface, that a 
man has to get insulated and isolated so as to get 
quiet enough to keep the balances within himself 
steady. Yet all this is itself an immense advan- 
tage, for it tends to increase the inner quiet, which 
is man's true spirit. 

The Book. 



In such a spirit, and for such a purpose, let a 
man begin reading this Book through. Let him 
read it just as he would any other book so far 
as his mental processes are concerned, thought- 
fully and clear through, reserving his conclusion, 
as of course he will, until he is through. He may 
find much that does not seem clear. He may 
find what seem to be inconsistencies or inaccu- 
racies. Let him note these mentally, but hold 
them strictly in abeyance, for he is aiming to get 
the spirit and swing of the Book clear through. 
Repeated readings have been found to clear up 
many matters that seemed puzzling at first, and 
some never are cleared up. But those, it is to 
be noted, never affect the main purpose of the 
Book. 

There are certain things to be noted about the 
Book. It has had a strange history. Indeed, 
in the strangeness of its history it is apart from all 
other books of any nation or people. It has been 
printed in greater numbers by far than any other 
book, and in many more languages. More 



The Problem of Doubt 63 

scholarly men of acute mind have given their 
time and lives to its study and explanation than 
to any other. It has been and still is the most 
studied, the most read, the best loved, and the 
worst hated of any book. It has been a veritable 
storm centre, and also, in sharp contrast with that 
phrase, a veritable haven of rest. Thousands of 
men have stormed over its contents, and hundreds 
of thousands have found in its pages that which 
spoke sweetest peace to their spirits, and held 
them steady in life's roughest storms. 

It has had a strange vitality, outliving all sorts of 
enmity. Men used to burn it up in their efforts 
to get rid of it. Of late years they have taken to 
cutting it up with keen fingers and sharp-edged 
knives. But it seems to survive either process 
about equally well, and is to-day being printed in 
larger numbers than ever, scattered more widely, 
studied more thoroughly and keenly, and appar- 
ently loved more devoutly. No intelligent man 
can afford to be ignorant of a book with such a 
record. 

The Book itself is found to contain as many as 
sixty-six distinct books, written by many writers, 
at least as many as forty. These men writing it 
are from all classes of society. Some have had 
the best learning and culture of their times and 
of the world ; others seem to have had practically 
no such advantages. They wrote in many differ- 
ent places, as far apart in extremes as Rome in 
Europe and Babylon in Asia. The period of 
writing runs through as much as sixteen hundred 



64 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

years. So that it is not like most books, in being 
written by one man. It is a collection of books 
by many men, of different sorts, written under 
all sorts of conditions and circumstances, in many 
different countries, running through a very long 
period of time. 

Now please note what is the most noteworthy 
thing of all this Book, its subject. It is about 
religion. There is no one subject on which men 
have talked so much and about which they have 
differed so radically and so violently as the sub- 
ject of religion. The greatest hatreds of the race 
have been about religion. The worst cruelties 
have been practised in religion's name and for its 
sake. Wherever men gather in groups large or 
small they will sooner or later get to talking about 
two subjects, and differ with each other on each. 
It may be in the logging-camp, or about the 
miner's common fire, on the upper deck or in the 
steerage of a steamer, in social circles or uni- 
versity circles, in the commercial club or in the 
slums. Let men talk freely together and two 
subjects crop out, religion and politics; the rela- 
tion of man to God and his relation to his fellow. 
And invariably they differ, politely, gently, in- 
tensely, abruptly, stormily, according to the sort 
of men, but always differ. 

Now this Book, or collection of small books, 
from so many different men, so different in every 
way, is about this stormy, divisive subject of re- 
ligion. Yet there is here an essential agreement. 
There is a practical unity of thought and ideal 



The Problem of Doubt 65 

and purpose throughout from end to end. This 
is one of the first things that strikes one most 
forcibly in examining this book. And finding it 
intensifies one's interest greatly and sets his appe- 
tite on edge as he goes at it farther. 

There is a second thing to note. This Book 
is a sort of mother of books. It has given birth 
to great numbers of books, on all phases of lif e on 
which books are written. It seems to have had 
a peculiar power of stimulating thought. There 
is here a vitality that has been felt in every de- 
partment of writing and research. And more, 
all the lines of study to which men have devoted 
their strength seem to run their roots down into 
this Book, and to draw a certain element of life 
from it. Here in the Book is the oldest history, 
hoary with age; and here in the scholarly world 
are books written by strong men who have spent 
money and time and talent in digging up the old 
records out of the earth, and verifying these simple 
statements of the old Book. Here in the Book 
is a system of political economy, or at least the 
principles of that science; and here in the col- 
lege libraries and halls are hundreds of books on 
that subject which work out and amplify the 
principles found here. Students of the perplex- 
ing land question will find a simple solution pro- 
posed here ; though it is not a solution that am- 
bitious men with selfish desires are very likely 
to adopt for their own holdings. 

The laws of Moses have come to be the foun- 
tain of all modern as well as earlier jurisprudence. 



66 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Behind Blackstone and Coke and other great 
legal authorities is Moses. They build upon his 
foundations. The strongest nations of to-day 
have the primary principles of the Mosaic code 
interwoven inextricably into their common law, 
and so into their life. 

A former United States Senator from one of the 
northwestern States, noted for his strength as a 
legal advocate, has told the story of his early 
ambition to be a lawyer. As a youth he had 
gone tremblingly to a famous lawyer and made 
application to read law in his office. To his utter 
astonishment the lawyer said brusquely, "Can 
you recite the Bible through, sir?" The young 
man managed to stammer out his astonished ' ' No. ' ' 
"Well," the old judge said shortly, "go and 
memorize the Bible and then you may come and 
read law here." And out the youth went in an 
utter daze, wondering what the Bible had to do 
with reading law. But the coveted permission 
depended upon that, so he set to work and did 
commit great portions of the Book. He became 
famous as a lawyer both within and beyond the 
bounds of his own State, and frequently said he 
realized in the after-years what a foundation for 
his legal knowledge and practice was laid in that 
early biblical study. 

The best books on moral philosophy, on sani- 
tation and personal health, on shrewd business 
ethics, draw their inspiration from the princi- 
ples first found here. Its language and imagery 
honeycomb the finest literature of the English 



The Problem of Doubt 67 

tongue. If one were to cut out of Shakespeare 
and Tennyson and the other great English poets 
all allusions taken from this Book, scarcely a 
page of their writings would escape the scissors. 

When Benjamin Franklin was ambassador at 
the French court he was one of a circle of scholarly 
men who met frequently to discuss literary mat- 
ters. It was their custom to bring to the gather- 
ings choice, rare bits of literature to be read and 
discussed. It was a time when scepticism was 
rampant and the Bible a hated hook. One day 
Franklin said: "Gentlemen, I have found a rare 
gem of literary beauty, which I have brought to 
read to you." They listened keenly as he read 
through the little book of Ruth, making slight 
changes that its Biblical identity might not be 
suspected. As he finished they were all enthu- 
siastic in praise of its simple beauty, and inquired 
eagerly where he had found such a choice gem. 
He dryly said he had found it in a book called 
the Bible. 

There is one feature of this Book that is most 
peculiar, and that is its scientific accuracy. It is 
not written, of course, in any part from a scien- 
tific standpoint. Its language is never scientific, 
but is just the simple language of the com- 
mon people. But it always -fits in with well- 
attested scientific facts. There is no jarring, 
no slips, no glaring breaks, no language ever used 
that does not fit in with the matured statements 
of science. When we recall the statement com- 
monly made that any technical book as much as 



68 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

ten years old must be thrown aside as worthless, 
because of the constant change in the state of 
knowledge, one begins to realize and appreciate 
what a tremendous peculiarity this is. 

But the main thing that gets hold of a man 
reading thoughtfully here, and then grips him 
hard and holds him in its tight grip, is the ideals 
of the Book, wonderful high moral ideals such 
as he finds nowhere else. Its conception of God, 
of the worth and nobility of man, its insistent 
ideals of right, and of love as the standard in life, 
are such as can be found nowhere else. They 
are such as to swing the earnest man, eager for a 
pure, strong life, clear off his feet. 

And these ideals are held to strenuously in the 
midst of the world's worst sin. Its exposure of 
sin, of insincerity, and selfishness in all phases 
and forms is terrific, and its hatred of them more 
intensely terrific still. Its heroes are praised, 
but always with the plainest unvarnished deal- 
ings with their faults and weaknesses. 

The Man. 

But the great fact of the Book is a personality 
that looms up large through all of its pages. 
From beginning to end there is one striking 
personality dominant. All through the older 
portion He is coming. Men fail, the best men 
with the best training fail, the kingdoms fall, 
the kingdom and people about whom the Book 
is woven fail most miserably, but there is some 
One coming who will fill out the highest expecta- 



The Problem of Doubt 69 

tions. In the Gospels He has come; in the later 
books all thought is utterly absorbed in Him; in 
the last book, the climax, His coming glory floods 
the pages. He is the heart of the Book. 

Let me gather up a few facts about this Man. 
I will pack them into small compass that they 
may be grasped together. He was born in ob- 
scurity and in poverty, cradled in a stable, 
brought up in a country village whose good 
moral character was seriously questioned, had 
no contact with the schools of His time, being 
home trained, never travelled outside of a bit of 
territory about seventy by one hundred miles, was 
born of a people peculiarly exclusive and intense, 
had access to no literature except the very limited 
literature of His peculiarly seclusive people. Yet 
He developed a character singularly perfect. 

There was in Him the utter absence of evil, 
and the presence of all known good. He was 
sterner than the sternest man in denouncing 
wrong, and tenderer than the tenderest woman 
in ministering to others. He never uttered an 
apology. In that He stands alone of all men of 
whom we have any record. He said He was 
without sin, and by consent of His enemies, in- 
cluding the man who betrayed Him and the man 
who condemned Him, as well as those who knew 
Him most intimately, He was without fault. His 
life for those few years of public work was liter- 
ally spent out in glad, tireless service of the most 
practical sort for those around. He gave Himself 
to the needs of needy men with an utter self- 



jo Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

forgetting abandon. Night and day, cease- 
lessly, tirelessly, He ministered to men, feeding 
the hungry, healing the sick, relieving the dis- 
tressed and demonized, and even raising the dead ; 
while He had at times no time so much as to eat, 
no home to call His own, and no funds upon 
which to draw, being ministered to in personal 
needs by friends. 

His teachings are marked by an originality, a 
sweep of conception, and a freshness never ap- 
proached before nor since, and wholly at variance 
with His human origin and His surroundings. 
They have become and are to-day the accepted 
standard for purity of conception, high ideals of 
life, boldness of originality, stupendousness of 
sweep, and simplicity of expression. 

And then will you please mark keenly His 
method of influencing men ? The world's greatest 
leaders and conquerors have been soldiers. 
Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon ruled by 
force, their great personality and power finding ex- 
pression at the sword's point. Others have swayed 
men by the books they wrote. Jesus influenced 
men by the power of His teaching, of His thought, 
but far more by the strangely simple power of His 
life, by the touch of His personality alone. 

The extent of his influence is startling even to 
this day, though so familiar. He lived for only 
thirty-three years. His public career was but for 
a tenth as long a time, only about three years and 
a bit more. He was put to death ignominiously 
and cruelly, and laid away in a tomb. He left no 



The Problem of Doubt 7 1 

book behind, and formed no organization, only a 
little handful of eleven unschooled peasants whom 
He had associated closely with Himself in His life 
and work. Yet within three centuries He had 
changed the Roman calendar, which was practi- 
cally the world's calendar. To-day the world's 
calendars with small exception swing about the 
pivot of His birth. All events of history are lo- 
cated by their relation to Him, their occurrence 
"before Christ" or in a given "year of our Lord." 
The nations that call themselves by His name 
are the dominant nations of the earth. The life 
of the whole world has known a new life dating 
from His coming. His conception of life, personal 
life and social life, is regarded throughout the 
world as the highest. To-day more than ever 
He is dominant in the life of the earth. Of Him 
the old German, Jean Paul Frederick Richter, 
said in words that have grown very familiar, quot- 
ing freely, that "He, being the mightiest among 
the holy, and the holiest among the mighty, lifted 
with His pierced hands the gates of empires off 
their hinges, turned the streams of centuries out 
of their channels, and to-day rules the world." 

Now please mark with keenest thought what 
this man Jesus said about Himself. This is the 
most critical part of all to study regarding Him. 
He claimed to be the Son of God in a sense that 
nobody else was; before His earthly life He had 
been with God in closest intimacy, known only 
by Himself; He had come down to the earth to 
tell men about God ; when His errand to the earth 



72 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

was done He would go back again to be with His 
Father, as He had been from before the beginning 
of time. Let the thoughtful man note very sharply 
that this is the claim Jesus made, and insistently 
made for Himself in the face of bitterest opposition. 

Such a claim clearly stamps its maker as one 
of three sorts of men. Either He was a fanatic, 
self -deluded with regard to Himself; or else He 
was not a good man, but purposely said what 
He knew to be not so; or else — He was what He 
claimed to be. The purity of His life, unap- 
proached by any other man, together with His 
constant, tireless, self-sacrificing service on behalf 
of others, clearly rules out the supposition that He 
was not good. And all men have agreed in His 
goodness. 

That He was a fanatic, self -deceived with regard 
to Himself, swept off His mental balance by the 
high fervor of His spirit and hot rush of His en- 
thusiasm, would seem the much likelier suppo- 
sition of these two. Yet the wisdom of His 
teachings, equalled by none other, recognized and 
acknowledged freely by all; His rare mental calm- 
ness and poise under all circumstances, including 
the most trying; and the remarkable clearness and 
sanity of His judgment effectually dispose of this 
supposition. 

It has been freely said, of late especially, that 
these followers of His, whose accounts make up 
the Gospel records, in their enthusiastic loyalty 
to Him, claim more for Him in their writing than 
He actually claimed for Himself. Yet be it 



The Problem of Doubt 73 

keenly marked there, that it was this claim of His 
that led to the bitterness of the enmity against 
Him, and to its final ending in His being put to 
death. And further, these records are our only 
source of original information about Jesus and 
the stupendousness of His character. The un- 
rivalled place He occupies in history and in all 
the race of men agrees fully with the claim put 
forth for Him in these four small books. 

Now if these two suppositions be shut out there 
is left only this, the most stupendous of the three, 
that Jesus actually was what He claimed to be. 
And the severest criticism that can be made of 
our scholarly sceptical friends comes in just here. 
They agree about His life, its pure, positive good- 
ness; His teachings, their unapproached and 
unapproachable wisdom ; the rare sanity of His 
judgment, and the sublimity of His conceptions. 
The sceptics of sceptical France, the rational- 
ists of rationalistic Germany, the worldly men of 
all the world, all practically agree here. Yet they 
have not accepted what He Himself believed about 
Himself. Surely if what they do believe about 
Him is true, it is altogether logical to go on, and 
believe what He Himself believed about Himself. 

The Call of the Christ. 



Now please note very keenly what it was upon 
which Jesus laid the chief emphasis regarding 
Himself — it was upon His death. From His own 
point of view the climax of His life was His death. 
That last year He continually referred to it, and 



74 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

to its meaning for men. As the shadows of death 
darkened down about Him, and its chill waters 
deepened in their nearness, He asked that all 
who loved Him would remember His death. 
The Church has never forgotten that request of 
the last night. However at times the emphasis 
of her teachers may have swung away from it, 
the simple memorial meal from the Master's 
own hands has brought out constantly into 
boldest relief His great death. Every week 
untold thousands of many creeds and tongues 
and shadings of belief reverently bow in the 
presence of the simple bread and wine, and re- 
member that Jesus died. 

The chief personality of this Book, and of all 
history, is this Man. The chief event of this 
Man's life, in His own thought of it, was His 
death. He declared that for a specific purpose 
He deliberately yielded to death. The whole 
presumption is in favor of our believing that if He 
had not yielded Himself voluntarily up to His 
enemies He would never have died. He would 
never even have known any of the common weak- 
ness of increasing years; only a full maturing of 
His powers. For the element of sin which works 
weakness and death was lacking in Him. 

This puts sharper emphasis yet upon the sig- 
nificance of His purpose in consenting to death. 
No fact stands out more plainly in the Gospel 
stories than this, that He yielded to death of His 
own accord for a great purpose. The time of His 
death, the fact of it, the manner of it, were con- 



The Problem of Doubt 75 

trolled by the way in which He repeatedly avoided 
His enemies until He chose to yield to their will. 

What was the purpose of His death? His 
point of view in yielding to it may be put simply 
in this way: all men have sinned; the natural, 
logical result of sin is death ; it grieved the Father 
much that man had gotten into such a bad fix; 
out of love the Father sent Him down, and He 
came down to die that so man might be saved 
from dying. Any man and every man who is 
willing may accept Jesus' death as his own, and 
instead of his own. Whoever does can so be free 
from sin's power to work death in him. 

But there is more than this in Jesus' under- 
standing of the matter. He did more than die. 
He lived a pure, sinless life before His death, and 
He lived a new kind of life after His death. He 
said He would send down the Holy Spirit to live 
in each man who was willing. That Spirit would 
burn out the bad, make a man hate sin, and give 
power to resist sin. He would work out within 
a man the pure life of Jesus, and more, the new 
kind of life that Jesus lived after His death — a 
life lived on the earth but not subject to its power, 
controlled from above. This new life would be 
lived in part only, for there was no promise of 
bodily death being removed ; but in a coming day 
it also was to be gone and that new kind of life 
lived fully. This was Jesus' point of view, and 
His purpose in yielding to death. 

There is a response to this in human experience 
that is remarkable. There is that within a man's 



76 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

need that answers to this plan of Jesus. It is 
very common to-day, in some quarters, to find 
great emphasis laid upon the example of Jesus, 
and little or none upon His death. Let our 
friend who exploits the example of Jesus as 
the chief thing in His wonderful life, ignoring 
the sacrificial element in His death, let him 
try honestly to follow that great example fully, 
with no apologies for his own weakness. And 
if he is frank and honest he will be com- 
pelled to admit that it takes more than example 
to change a man. There needs to be a very 
positive power put into a man by some One else. 
It must be a power with the force of moral dyna- 
mite, if some things such as impurity and selfish- 
ness are to be put out, and kept out, and certain 
other things such as purity and strength and sweet, 
strong unselfishness to be put in. 

Jesus asked that He might be accepted as man's 
Saviour, a Saviour from the result of sin, and from 
its great power. This was His earnest appeal 
to men when down here among us. It is the 
thrilling appeal of these four simple Gospels to 
every man. It is to-day the eager cry of Jesus' 
heart to each of us. A man in earnest can easily 
believe enough to respond with his whole life to 
that cry. It means a new life, with new motives, 
and, infinitely more, new power. And as a man 
quietly, resolutely steps into this path, new light 
begins to break in from the east, and then more, 
and yet more, until some day, it is promised, 
there will be the full shining of the sun. 



THE PROBLEM OF AMBITION, 

OR 

WHAT IS BEST WORTH WHILE 



The World's Under-Master. 

God Needs Men. 

The Brooding Need. 

" Forgetting, I Press Forward." 

A Double Trinity. 

A High Aim. 

A Strange Coat-of-arms. 

A Higher Aim 

The Man Waiting to Go Along. 



The Problem of Ambition 



The World's Under -Master, 

If a man is climbing a mountain he needs some 
road marks, or an object to guide by, else he will 
not get anywhere. He may enjoy the climb, and 
get some pretty glimpses of scenery, but he never 
reaches the top, and is apt to lose his way. If he 
is in a large crowd he needs to have some definite 
aim or he will lose himself in the crowd, and 
come to the end of the day tired out and with 
nothing done. If he is crossing the sea, or the 
desert, he needs a compass to guide by, or he is 
likely to lose his lif e. 

And if he is simply trying to make his lif e count 
for what it was intended to, he needs something 
to guide by. For sometimes the path is hidden 
and overgrown. And ofttimes there is the con- 
fusion of a big crowd, with shuffling feet making 
both dust and noise. And many times the path 
seems as difficult to find as on the pathless sea or 
desert. And a good many seem to go astray 
and spend the day of life on the less important 
things, and then towards its twilight, feel sharp 
twinges of regret. So that we want to talk to- 
gether quietly a bit about the North Star of life, 

79 



80 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

the compass, the true road-marks, that we may 
aim straight, and travel steady, and reach 
the top. 

There are three great forces in the world 
of matter, fire and wind and water. And the 
greatest of these is fire. There are two great 
forces in the world of men, organization and the 
individual; a group of men acting together and 
the man himself in the group ; and the greater of 
these is the individual, the man. The organiza- 
tion is dependent upon the men composing it, and 
even more upon the man who is the leader. It is 
limited to the things upon which these men can 
agree. The more men there are, the fewer the 
things on which they will agree. The organiza- 
tion is a composite, not of the men, but of so much 
of them as can get together in agreement on a 
particular subject. By far the greater of the two 
is the man. 

The world of matter belongs under man's 
thumb. It was given to him to subdue and de- 
velop and control. The greatest force in the 
world of matter and of man is a man. The 
greatest factor in human life is a man, with clear 
brain and of fine grain, with clear light in his eye, 
and the hue of health on his cheek, with poised 
judgment and rugged will, with sweet spirit and 
pure heart. 

Every great movement in history has revolved 
about a man as its pivot, or found embodiment 
in him. To recall the great invasion of southern 
Europe by the hordes of northern barbarians is 



The Problem of Ambition 8 1 

to think of Alaric, the foremost of all their leaders, 
sacking the world's capital. To think of the 
second most stupendous movement among the 
peoples of the earth, the Reformation, is to see 
Luther, the greatest of its leaders. The French 
Revolution found its embodiment in Mirabeau. 
To speak of law and legal codes is to call up 
Moses, chief est of all; and of autocratic govern- 
ment, Julius Caesar, whose name still survives in 
the titles of the Russian Czar and the Ger- 
man Kaiser. 

God Needs Men. 



When God would do anything among men 
He chooses and uses a man. When He wanted 
to grow a nation that would stand for the highest 
ideals of revealed religion, even as later Greece 
stood for letters, and Rome for the power of or- 
ganization, He chose a man up in the Euphrates 
Valley. And about this man, Abraham, He 
began slowly to build up that strange people 
which has had the greatest influence of any upon 
the nations of the earth. When that nation, not 
yet fully born as a nation, was in sore danger of 
being throttled in its birth, He took a man, 
Moses, chosen from his birth, graduate in the 
highest learning of earth's best schools, with a 
postgraduate degree from the University of Arabia, 
and who has left the indelible marks of his native 
gifts and special training upon that people, and 
upon the life of the whole race. 

W T ith deepest reverence be it said, when God 
6 



8 2 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

would redeem a world He sent a Man. That 
Man was as truly a man as though not infinitely 
more. Yet His character clearly marks Him off 
from all other men. When He would awaken 
the life of the whole earth by awakening its head, 
He chose a man, Luther. One cannot think of 
that vast moral and mental upheaval of Europe 
which took so long to reach its flood tide without 
having his vision filled with the figure of the 
German giant, and about him grouped, through 
the years of that movement of staggering, re- 
generating power, such men as scholarly Wycliff 
in England, brave Huss in Bohemia, eloquent 
Savonarola in Italy, the keen and logical states- 
man Calvin in Geneva, and rugged Knox in 
Scotland. 

When He would build up a new nation on the 
westernmost continent to stand for liberty, He 
chose the stalwart Virginian, Washington. And 
when that nation itself was to be taught liberty, 
and held together in its hour of severest testing 
as a nation, He chose the English giant of Ken- 
tucky and Illinois, Lincoln. And later yet, 
when He would teach the privileges of liberty to 
those whose only birthright was slavery, He chose 
a black Washington for the rare, difficult task. 

But one must never let the leaders make him 
forget the faithful common folk without whom no 
leader could do his work. The common every- 
day life, not told by the history writer, is depen- 
dent even more upon the individual man, whether 
it be the manning of the ship, or the running of 



The Problem of Ambition 83 

the railroad, or the weaving of life's common web 
anywhere. Success and happiness depend upon 
the one man, in the thick of things, quietly doing 
the commonplace things, with an uncommon, 
faithful steadiness. 

The Brooding Need. 

The greatest need of the world is men. The 
spirit of organization which has seized hold of 
present-day life and specialized it so highly in 
every direction makes that need greater to-day 
than ever. The organization is no stronger mor- 
ally than the man in control. It is no stronger 
in ability than the men who serve it. And one 
never knows upon what one man the whole in- 
tricate machinery may depend and revolve. The 
world needs men to-day as never before. There 
are movements for higher ideals in national affairs 
waiting for men to lead them. 

There are great movements in the people's re- 
ligious life waiting for the men who can embody 
them, and teach, and lead. And the need always 
finds the man. There is a law of affinity that 
brings them together. The need brooding over 
the face of the people seems to bring forth the 
man imbued with its own spirit, to be its cham- 
pion, though the higher in the scale of fife, the 
longer time does it take for the maturity that finds 
a perfect birth; man takes longest of any of the 
animal creation, finer grained men still longer, 
and leaders longest yet. The need disregards 
all questions of birth and blood, training of the 



84 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

schools and social surroundings, so dear to human 
hearts, and by an unerring intuition goes straight 
to its man, and patiently waits till he be full 
ready. 

" Forgetting, I Press Forward. 11 

But that word " man " seems to have more than 
one meaning. There is a cheaper use of it for the 
male of the human race, with the usual supply 
of organs, and the usual stock of limbs to walk 
and work with, but with no high controlling aim. 
And then there is the nobler use of it for that fine 
spirit, of either sex, which sees the high aim of life, 
and bends every bit of strength steadily towards 
reaching it. 

I want to have the boldness to talk a bit about 
a man, the ideal man. In a day when the practi- 
cal is seizing the lines and driving hard that word 
ideal is misunderstood and abused. There is 
nothing so really practical as the truly ideal. 
Ideal does not mean visionary in the weak sense. 
It means aiming high ; no, it means aiming high- 
est. It has not gotten up there, but it is reaching, 
stretching up. It is dissatisfied with anything a 
whit less than the highest level. Its favorite 
motto is " Forgetting, I press forward." For- 
getting the things behind, I press toward the mark. 

The victories are forgotten in the eager reach 
for greater. The temptations and falls and fail- 
ures are forgotten except as warnings in the on- 
ward push. The ideal man is he who has a vision 
of the mountain top, and is sweetly, earnestly, 



The Problem of Ambition 85 

untiringly, unflinchingly making even 7 bit of 
strength and time and even* circumstance bend 
towards reaching it. And who resolutely pushes 
aside everything that would hinder or not help. 

We want in our talk to-day to get a bit, a good 
clear bit, of a vision of that mountain top, to 
reach which is the thing best and most worth 
while. It will only be a bit, though, at best. For 
even* man must see his own vision. And the 
vision increases in size and clearness as one 
climbs. The man we are talking about just now 
is a trinity. There are three of him tied up to- 
gether. The three are in a scale ascending from 
lowest to highest. At the lowest there is a body; 
yet though lowest it is never low ; at the lowest it 
is high. The lowest rung of this ladder is high. 

A step up is the mind. Even* man has a mind, 
though quite a number do not seem to have sus- 
pected that fact. It is peculiar in its make-up; 
there is a cold-storage room for facts ; a photog- 
rapher's highly sensitized plate for receiving im- 
pressions of all that comes; and a judge sitting 
above all to weigh and sift and give decisions and 
guide all below. And highest of all is the spirit 
w*hich lives in the body, thinks through the mind, 
and holds the sceptre of the life. 

The true man aims steadily to have a trained 
body, its powers matured or rather maturing, 
disciplined to obey and under full control. It 
is to be kept steadily in its place of a faithful 
servant That is a very high place, to serve 
faithfully the purpose intended. He does not cod- 



86 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

die his body, nor abuse it ; he is not heedless of 
its requirements ; and, above all, he is not igno- 
rant of its nature and needs, and does not allow 
it to reverse the true order and become master. 
This man has not attained, but he is reaching, 
and this is his aim. 

A Double Trinity. 

On the next higher level is another trinity, a 
trinity within a trinity, for the mind is that. 
Through the five in-gates of eye and ear, taste 
and touch and smell, come in the impressions, 
the information, the facts that are put away. 
The intellect is the mind's cold storage for gather- 
ing and holding all that comes. It should be 
kept clear, cool, and calm, ever alertly listening, 
keen for facts, gathering, weighing, sifting, sorting 
and pigeonholing them for use. 

Then there is the power to feel, the faculty that 
is impressed by all that comes, and that gives ex- 
pression to what is felt, the emotional nature. 
It should be kept soft so as to record quickly and 
accurately all that comes in. It properly is sus- 
ceptible, plastic; on the one hand not stupid, 
nor on the other overexcited or stale. There is 
perhaps less training of this faculty, except nar- 
rowly in strictly professional studies, as music or 
art or medical skill, than of either of the other 
two powers of the mind. It should not be re- 
pressed, and should not be dominant. Yet to 
either one of those extremes does the pendulum 
usually swing. 



The Problem of Ambition 87 

There is a tendency among men to repress the 
feelings, especially the finer feelings. There is 
a tendency among women to yield unduly to the 
feelings and allow them to rule. Both are ex- 
tremes to be carefully avoided. A tear may be 
as manly as rugged strength. And repressed 
emotion may be as womanly as the finer fibre of 
woman's strength. The tears that stand simply 
for an emotion spending itself out are hurtful; 
they do but wear away the strength to help that 
somebody needs. The tears that tell of a motive 
touched and stirred into action in behalf of that 
which called them forth are beauteous with rain- 
bow light. 

The duty of the feelings is to note accurately 
all that comes in and report fully to the will above. 
One should aim to discipline his emotional nature 
that it may serve him fully. The man one should 
be has not reached his aim here, but he is steadily 
stretching up towards it. 

Combined with these is the third and highest 
member of the mental trinity, the will. The will 
is the king here; the judge on the highest bench 
from which no appeal may be taken. It is the 
autocrat on the throne, with no constitution to 
limit its sway. There are various words used for 
the will: purpose is the aim or direction of the 
will ; determination is the quality of the will, tell- 
ing how much or how little the purpose may be 
depended upon ; force is the driving power of the 
will, telling how much pressure or how little may 
be brought into play in getting the will's will done. 



88 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

The man who would be true to his being keeps 
all the avenues of approach open to receive all 
there is, his intellect quietly and steadily at its 
work, the feelings sensitive but well in hand, the 
will listening to its servants and ruling fairly over 
all with a gentle but very firm hand. . 

Then distinctly above both of these is the spirit, 
the living spirit who resides within this organism 
of body and mind, animating and dominating all 
the powers below, and all the life. 

Such a man is ambitious, in the true sense of 
that great word. He is reaching steadily towards 
the highest levels. Ambition is healthful. I do 
not mean the feverish, envy-eaten, itching some- 
thing commonly called by that name, but the 
simple absorbing desire to attain the highest. 

A High Aim. 

What is the highest ambition that such an 
earnest man may attain to ? I do not say a high 
ambition, but the highest. There are many 
high targets at which men aim. But he is in a 
bad way who is aiming lower than the highest. 
And the highest includes all on the way up. 
These less-high things are added to the man seek- 
ting the highest. In all fairness the highest must 
be one that is open to all men, and possible to all. 
Leaving untouched many low, ignoble answers, 
there are among men four distinct standards of 
highest ambition. 

There are many who believe that to know 
is the highest achievement. Their number in- 



The Problem of Ambition 8 9 

eludes great, worthy names, and many more 
equally worthy though unnamed by the crowd. 
And to know is a great aim. Without doubt 
knowledge is power. It has literally revolu- 
tionized all thought, and all methods of living. 
It has led to the saving of numberless lives, and 
made the saved lives happier too. 

It is good to know, and to know what you know, 
and, modestly, to know that you know what you 
know, and that you do not know what you do not 
know. The old philosopher of Greece declared 
this to be the true knowledge. But the man who 
sets this before him as the chief ambition has a 
keen disappointment ahead. For the more you 
know the less you know; that is, the more you 
know of that you do not know. The wider the 
circle of knowledge, the broader is the sweep of 
ignorance. The higher the hill of knowledge you 
climb, the farther views you get of what you do 
not know. Knowing is largely a means of dis- 
covering the greatness of one's ignorance. If a 
man set this before himself as the highest aim he 
is doomed to bitterest disappointment. 

There are those who would take books and 
manuscripts and like means of research, and, in im- 
itation of the old Hebrews, make a calf of them — 
shall I say a papier-mdche calf ? — and say : " These 
be thy gods that shall lead out of every Egypt of 
slavery, up into the promised land." This is a 
comparatively small, but very select, company 
of choice spirits. 

This ambition is open to the very small number. 



90 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Even in our own land, where the public school 
is so blessedly common, and colleges large and 
small of all grades are so plentiful, these are prac- 
tically, with the exception of the lower school 
grades, for the few. Only a small proportion of 
all public- school pupils get as far as the high- 
school grade, a yet smaller number go to col- 
lege, and many of these do not complete the 
course. 

The world never knew so much, so many differ- 
ent things as to-day, and never was more igno- 
rant, profoundly ignorant ; that is, ignorant in the 
ignorance of the great masses of men, and igno- 
ant too of the simplest knowledge of true living. 
It is good to know, and to know the most and 
best, and to know thoroughly what is known, but 
plainly knowledge is simply a road through to 
something higher up. It is not a goal in itself. 

A Strange Coat-oj-arms. 

Then there is a great company whom nobody 
ever yet has numbered, of every nation and 
neighborhood, who plainly believe that to have, 
to possess, is the chief est thing in life. The taint 
of this infection seems to have gone into all cir- 
cles. Nothing escapes its unhallowed itch. It 
has become an epidemic in our own country. 
The old Hebrews had but one calf. Americans 
are more prodigal with their calves than that. 
We have two at least, the paper calf already spok- 
en of and the golden; though the golden can no 
longer be properly spoken of as a calf. It is a 



The Problem of Ambition 9 1 

matured bull, but not of the polled type ; it has 
full-grown horns. 

Money is extremely handy stuff and extremely 
dangerous stuff too. How rare the wisdom that 
reckons it at its full value) — and a great, untellable 
value that is — but keeps it strictly as a servant 
under the strong thumb of a high purpose. In the 
partnership of a pure, holy purpose it seems al- 
most omnipotent. But when it is allowed to grip 
both lines and whip, it drives a man such a pace 
as to use up all his strength, and leave him utterly 
winded for anything else. 

Though the world has a larger supply of gold 
than ever before, the vast majority of men are 
poor, strugglingly, pitiably poor. While there 
never was as good an opportunity as to-day for 
frugal, steady men to get enough and to spare, the 
crowd remains needy. And gold in itself is apt 
both to be and to bring a curse. It is good to 
have, and to have the most that may be gotten 
honestly, and unselfishly, and without the fever of 
it getting into the blood. Its possession increases 
the possible power of a man enormously. 

Yet if getting and having were the highest 
achievement it would mean that man's highest 
estate is to be a safety-deposit vault. The cor- 
rect coat-of-arms would be a clutching hand. 
The man develops into a tightly shut fist. The 
life becomes a gold-plated death. The yellow 
fever germ of the bank vault is sadly infecting 
many a noble lif e to-day. It is good to have for 
our needs, and for the world's need, but having 



92 Quiet Talks on Persona] Problems 

is simply a pathway through to something higher. 
It is not the highest ambition of life. 

A Higher Aim. 

Then there is a standard above these, much 
above ; the standard of doing. There is a splen- 
did company of those who believe that to do 
something is the highest ambition possible to 
man. These are eager to do the notable thing. 
They would be spoken of as having made a mark. 
Their names become known and are pronounced 
with a touch of awe sometimes. This is a dis- 
tinct step up. It is good to know and to have ; 
it is better to do. Achievement can transfigure 
both knowledge and gold with rare beauty. It 
can harness them for the world's good. When 
gold is at the command of hands outreaching in 
eager service it is fulfilling its highest mission. 

The gray matter of the brain is greatest when 
it is tingling at the warm finger-tips of helpful 
service. The man who knows a great deal but 
does not make use of it is like one worth a million 
dollars — all in big copper cents ; it is not avail- 
able for use in that shape. The man who is 
busy getting money primarily for himself, not for 
use among others, is like the Dead Sea. It lies 
at the deepest depression of the earth's surface; 
he lies at the deepest depression below the sur- 
face of his fellows' needs. The man who is bent 
upon achievement, the doing of some notable, 
worthy thing, is aiming higher but not highest. 

To do something notable is not the highest 



The Problem of Ambition 93 

ambition of life. And yet more thoughtfully be 
it said that service is not the highest achievement. 
Wherever there is a God-touched lif e there will 
be service, warm, whole-hearted, untiring ser- 
vice; yet it will be the outflow of something 
deeper in and deeper down than itself. The 
man who aims at doing as the chief achievement 
of his life, without a deeper driving-power, will 
come to the end when things clear up, hungry 
and tired, and both dissatisfied and unsatisfied. 

It is good to know, and to have. It is better to 
do; to do the thing best worth while, to do the 
most and the best; yet the highest ambition is 
not found here. It is but a roadway through to 
somewhere else, a high roadway and noble, yet 
only a roadway farther on and higher up. 

The Man Waiting to Go Along. 

It is good to know ; it is better to do ; it is best 
to be. To be pure and strong, to be honest and 
earnest, to be kindly and thoughtful, and in all 
to be true, to be manly and womanly and Christly 
— this is the greatest ambition of life. It is not in 
knowing or having or doing, but through knowing 
and having and doing the best, it is in being, in 
what a man is in himself. He can do most for 
others who has done most with himself. Mas- 
tery of circumstances comes only through mastery 
of self. 

The highest sphere of action is within. The 
little Corsican Emperor of the French could win 
great victories on the battlefield, but he could 



94 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

not overcome the horribly selfish ambitions, hun- 
grily eating the heart out of his human spirit; 
The man of Tarsus and Antioch had as intense 
an ambition, as great a grasp, and as strong a will, 
but his chief ambition was to be well-pleasing to 
his Master, his grasp was upon his own nature 
to bring it into subjection, and his will drove him 
over the world, that all men might know the same 
blessed self-mastery through Jesus. 

He is aiming at life's highest goal who, knowing 
the most and best, and seeking to have all he 
needs and can wisely use, and doing the best and 
most, rests not content in any of these, but hun- 
grily pushes on towards purity of heart and sim- 
plicity of life. The greatest ambition is not 
knowledge nor possessions, nor notable achieve- 
ment, but it is in being pure, and strong, and 
gentle, and warm ; that is to say, being Christly. 

It makes the heart glow to remember that this 
highest achievement of life is open to all. Only 
the few, the very few, become widely versed in 
knowledge, or possess large means, or achieve 
the notable things. The great majority of us re- 
main ignorant and poor and obscure. But any 
of us, and every one of us, may reach to the 
highest level in this highest sphere. The moun- 
tain white, the plantation black, the man crowded 
in the city slum or in roomier, pleasanter quar- 
ters, the savage just emerging from his genera- 
tions of savagery, the cultured and university- 
bred, the money rich and the money poor — all 
may enter here, and reach to the highest rung. 



The Problem of Ambition 95 

The one most limited in circumstance may touch 
the loftiest level. The one in most favored con- 
ditions may go as high, but can go no higher. 

And mark keenly how this affects all the life 
in these other matters. Where the warm, vitaliz- 
ing touch of the spirit of Christ is upon the life 
there is an eager thirst for knowledge. The new 
birth always includes a new mental birth too. 
There will be earnestness in the vocation, the 
occupation; a strong purpose to make things 
count for the most. There will be too an aggres- 
sive spirit of work and service, a desire to achieve 
the best possible within reach. But these will 
grow up out of that first ; they will have the sweet 
wholesomeness of the dominant purpose of the 
life. The passion to be masterful in purity, in 
gentleness of strength, and simplicity of life, 
with Jesus as both example and inspiration, will be 
the dominant thing. 

This is the mountain top. Here is the pure, 
invigorating air, the far view of great beauty and 
inspiration, the inward sense of strength from the 
climb, and rarest fellowship with like spirits. A 
man never gets to the tip-top, though. For as the 
top is reached a new top higher up comes into 
view, and then from that a higher yet. There is 
always the upward lift of a higher level just 
above. 

But the climber can't get very high alone. He 
would better not try. He is apt to make some bad 
stumbles, and lose the main road. He does not 
need to go alone. There is a Man waiting at the 



g6 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

beginning of the path, with a face that is scarred 
but rarely beautiful, and a most winsome way. 
He has been up the road with many others. 
Those scars tell the story of the road He has 
travelled. We may each go along with Him as 
our personal guide and friend on the way. Let 
us go. 



THE PROBLEM OF SELF- 
MASTERY 



The Greatest Battlefield. 

Ditching Life's Stream. 

The Original Image. 

"Study to Keep Quiet." 

Living Musically. 

In Step with God. 

Living in the Essentials. 

The Foes of Self-Mastery. 

Yielding to the Mastery of Jesus. 



The Problem of Self- 
Mastery 



The Greatest Battlefield 

The greatest battlefield on which a man ever 
fought is within himself. The greatest victories 
are there. Victory there is the greatest victory 
possible in a man's life. All the great achieve- 
ments of men outside of themselves are less than 
the achievement of getting mastery of themselves. 
Victory here means victory elsewhere. 

All other problems of the personal sort are in- 
cluded in this. Their solution is included in its 
solution. There must be practical understand- 
ing about sin, and real power over it, before there 
can be self-mastery. For it was sin that first 
stole self-mastery away. Selfishness must be 
seen and gripped in its subtle as well as its coarse 
forms, before the sweets of the finest self-mastery 
can be tasted. Doubt must be mastered, at least 
far enough to give a steady footing and steady 
going, if the fragrance of self-mastery is to fill the 
life. Only he who sees clearly the highest am- 
bition of life, and holds everything else strictly 
under, can climb the heights here. 

A man's foes are those of his own household, the 
99 

LOfC. 



i oo Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

household of his own person and his own life. 
Victory here brings the strength that wins on 
every other field. And victory on any other field, 
or every other, is robbed of its sweets, if a man 
is whipped on this field of his own personality. 

The man who can rule wisely and masterfully 
within his own spirit is greater than he who rules 
a state or a nation or a great corporation. It is 
true there must be some mastery of self before 
there can be mastery of others, but then we are 
not talking about partial mastery, except as it is 
a stepping-stone up to the highest. 

The greatest mastery is self-mastery. The 
greatest man is he who has become master of 
himself, not in the limited sense of some who do 
notable things on other fields, but in the finest, 
fullest sense. This is the most fascinating of all 
problems. It is a continuous problem, ever 
yielding to solution, yet never fully solved. For 
every high level reached shows a higher beyond, 
so great is the possibility lying within one's self. 

Man was made like God and to have dominion 
over all the lower creation. That is the Bible 
way of saying that he was to be master of his own 
self, and through that self-mastery to be master 
of all creation. The man eager to reach the 
highest mastery will study God, for here is the 
original plan for himself. He will keep in close 
contact with the Original. The closer that touch 
the nearer does he come to his own true self. 



The Problem of Self-Mastery i o i 

Ditching Life's Stream. 

Self-mastery requires a full knowledge of one's 
self, or at least a steadily growing knowledge. 
It means a reverential regard for the marvellous 
functions and powers that he finds within himself. 
Control requires knowledge, as well as more than 
knowledge. Increasing knowledge leads the way 
to increasing mastery, and should lead to greater 
reverence. 

The man who reverences his wonderful powers 
is held off just that far from sin. The man who 
sins despises himself. Sin is never reverential. 
It is always profane. Self-mastery is always rev- 
erential, towards God most and first, then tow- 
ards the man himself made in the image of God, 
and then towards all other men in that same 
image, and towards all of God's creation. The 
man who sins is blurring and blotting out the fine 
image of God imprinted on himself. Knowl- 
edge of one's self, and reverence for one's self, 
are open doors, one after the other, into purity 
and maturity and control. 

We have talked together a bit about the ideal 
man in the talk on ambition. And one should 
keep that ideal clearly in mind. There are three 
spheres within one's self, the body, the mind, and 
the spirit. Self-mastery means fullest culture 
and control of all three of these. Spirit culture 
is the rarest to be found of any of the three. But 
a full, rounded culture of all three, each in itself, 
and each in due relation to the others, is rarer still. 



102 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

But there is yet more to be said here. A man 
has three relationships, inward to himself, up- 
ward to God, outward to his neighbor. The 
relationship to God holds the key to the other 
two. There is ever the tendency to push some 
one of these at the expense of the others. How 
sin has unsteadied our nerves, and given a twist 
to our eyes! To keep true and steady the upper 
relation means to keep the others true too. The 
nearer to God a man gets the nearer does he come 
to his own true possible self. And the nearer to 
God the closer to one's fellows always; and not 
only the closer, but the purer and stronger and 
fairer that neighborly contact will be. 

Self-mastery means holding true to one's re- 
lationships, upward, inward, outward. There 
are men who are regarded as masterful men who 
yet ignore their relationship to God. They are 
masterful. They reveal rare power. Yet it is 
one-sided. Another side, the upper, is untouched, 
ignored; and the one-sided mastery itself is in- 
complete because it can become full only through 
what comes in from above. The stream of life 
flows down from above, it flows in and through, 
and then flows out to others. Any other running 
of the stream by ditches or dams is changing 
nature's order, and spoils the life. It will either 
stagnate and grow green slime on its surface, or 
else it will run low and run out. 



The Problem of Self Mastery 103 

The Original Image. 

Self-mastery means holding one's self and one's 
powers steady to their true use; not lack of use, 
deficiency; nor over-use, prodigality ; nor misuse, 
the inappropriate, the improper; nor abuse, the 
injurious; but nature's true, full use. It does not 
mean repression but control, full expression 
through control. It recognizes that what is not 
controlled goes to extremes; weak, bad, wrong 
extremes. 

Nowhere is the hurt of sin seen more than in 
the unsteady, uneven swing of the pendulum of 
life. Sin is a sort of magnet pulling it unduly 
over to one side and holding it there, or giving 
it a wobbling movement. Mastery is holding 
things steady to their true use. One needs to 
know what their true use is, and then to have the 
strength of purpose, and the greater strength of 
discipline — tested purpose — and then something 
more, to hold him steady to the high aim. 

Mastery of self through mastery by God, and 
in order to be of service to one's fellows, is the 
ideal one should steadily strive for. A man 
should not be afraid of that fine word ideal. It 
is held up to ridicule quite a bit. It is sometimes 
used for something impractical, up in the clouds, 
quite out of reach. It should rather be used for 
that towards which a man aims. The ideal is the 
perfect natural standard towards which one should 
be ever reaching and stretching up. Jesus said, 
"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is 



1 04 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

perfect." He wouldn't have told us to do it, if 
it couldn't be done. There is not only an ideal, 
"be ye perfect," but the highest possible ideal, 
"as your Father is perfect." 

It is a peculiar quality of the true ideal that it 
is never reached ; for when reached it grows un- 
der the reaching touch into something finer and 
higher and yet more attractive. True ideals are 
wonderfully stimulating. They grow as they are 
touched. And while there is a sense of gladness 
and content in the touch, that very touch itself 
gives a yearning for a higher yet, and a new am- 
bitious reaching on and up. 

The closer a man sticks to the Original the 
nearer will he come to self-mastery. The origi- 
nal of man is God. To know God is to come 
to know our possible selves — the men we should 
be, and the men we will be. God is all the time 
revealing Himself to us in nature, in the won- 
drous Bible, in our own inner spirits. We should 
be eager to know Him, for so we come to know 
ourselves. And if we will know Him in the deeper 
sense of friendship's intimacy we shall come to 
be like Him again. That is self-mastery. Our 
greatest Teacher said: "This is life eternal, that 
they should know thee the only true God, and Him 
whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ." 

"Study to Keep Quiet." 

There are four great traits of God to be seen in 
nature, in His Word, and in His speaking within 
one's inner spirit. 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 105 

God is quiet. The earth has grown noisy. 
Nature is still. There are storm noises and earth- 
quakes, but these result from disturbances above 
and below. Both the disturbances and the noises 
are abnormal, not true to nature. Man has be- 
come noisy. God is quiet. Noise reveals weak- 
ness ; something is out of gear or tune. Sound is 
rhythm. Noise is discord; it is a result of fric- 
tion always, a jarring of two or more forces. The 
members of the orchestra are not controlled by 
the leader's eye; they are free-lancing. Strength 
is still. It may give a sound, but it is always a 
sound of stillness. It is rhythmic, harmonious, 
musical. 

God is quiet. He is revealing Himself, all the 
time, up to the highest possible limit, to His 
much-loved race of men. But He can come in 
only through an opened door. He can reveal 
Himself only to the man who opens his door. 
Sympathy with God, oneness of spirit with Him, 
is the key. A spirit of quiet stillness opens the 
life to this marvellous, quiet God. We can all 
recall how, in moments of quietness, God has 
spoken into the inner ear, and we have long re- 
membered what He said. We can remember, 
too, how at such times His speaking has deep- 
ened the quiet in our souls. God would woo us 
into that quietness of spirit akin to his own, that 
we may be living again in our native atmosphere — 
His presence. 

To a man absorbed in Christian activity, rush- 
ing, pushing, with nerves on tension and blood 



1 06 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

boiling, who wearily turned to God in prayer, 
there came one day into the inner ear, as he was on 
bent knees, a Voice speaking with great softness 
and equally great clearness, "Study to be quiet" 
It brought a great hush into his [spirit; in the 
following days it became a veritable sheet-anchor, 
holding the bark steady in many a storm. Its 
variations were brooded over that new life might 
come out of its inner depths; " study to keep 
quiet"; "be ambitious to be unambitious," in 
the world's abused meaning of that word ambi- 
tious. 

Many personal, practical applications, quietly, 
gradually worked themselves out of it into the 
fibre of habit. Keep the body quiet, the voice 
quiet, the eyes quiet, the thoughts, the imagina- 
tion, the emotions quiet. Put on nature's pneu- 
matic tires and rubber heels. "But," you say, 
"how self-conscious that must make one!" No, 
not if you do it quietly, naturally. Quiet does 
not mean repression. It means the natural ex- 
pression of mastery, neither overdone nor under- 
done. Mastery is holding true to nature. Mas- 
tery means quietness, the quietness of rhythm, of 
the sun's swing, of the dew's fall, of God's action 
in all nature, of the truly masterful man's natural 
life. 

As the days went their rounds, there came troop- 
ing to the support of this message, one by one, a 
group of quiet verses. From out the midst of 
that stormy Forty-sixth Psalm came the quiet, 
commanding note, "Be still and know that I am 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 1 07 

God," 1 with its alternate reading, "Let go and 
know that I am God." Let go your will and plans 
and you will find Somebody's else will and plans 
for you. Let go of yourself, and you will be- 
come conscious of Him. Be still, be still, and 
you will find God, and in finding Him be finding 
your own true self, for in His image were we 
made. But what a lot of persistent practising 
that "be still" does take! 

Into the hearts of many thousands have been 
sung, in classical music, those words of David's, 
"Rest in the Lord, and wait* patiently for Him." 2 
The margin of the Revision gives fine coloring, 
"Be still before the Lord." But the beauty, as 
well as the deep, simple philosophy, or, rather, 
the beauty because of the philosophy, comes out 
best in Luther's translation, "Be silent to God, 
and let Him mould thee." The wondrous power 
of silence when it is in God's presence, and tow- 
ards Him! 

The One hundred and seventh Psalm, 3 which 
the Hebrews sang responsively in their temple 
service, pictures vividly such a storm at sea as 
many a man has known upon the sea of his life, 
or the inner sea of his heart. But the great 
change comes when the oft-repeated "they" is 
changed to "He" — "He maketh the storm a 
calm, so that the waves thereof are still." His 
hands sweep the human keyboard and discord 
gives way to sweet music. And what a wealth 
of human experience is in the next line, "Then 

1 Psalm 46:10. 2 Psalm 37:7. 3 Psalm 107:26-32. 



108 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

are they glad because they be quiet." The re- 
turn to quiet is a return to natural life, as planned 
by the Giver of life. 

This vein of gold comes again to the sur- 
face in the Gospels. Matthew's kingly narrative 
gives the imperial touch to the same storm scene 
on Galilee's blue waters: "He rebuked the winds 
and the sea, and there was a great calm." 1 " Re- 
buked I" Something was wrong; somebody 
misbehaving; they were raising a storm. The 
Master appears with His rebuke. He was recog- 
nized. There was a great calm. If He were 
ever recognized and honored there would always 
be a great calm. And there can be mastery only 
when there is calm, nature's true condition. A 
change of figure couples with that this, also from 
Matthew: "And He touched her hand and the 
fever left her, and she arose and ministered to 
them." 2 The riot of fever in the blood, angry 
faces, green eyes, hooked fingers ! His touch — 
the fever goes, the storm is stilled, a great calm, 
then service. Only calm hands can serve truly. 

The Old Testament brings up a familiar line 
that has strengthened many a life in stress: 
"In quietness and in confidence shall be your 
strength." 3 Confidence is quiet. Fear is al- 
ways flurried. Strength is stored away in quiet- 
ness. Out of the quiet comes new strength. 
That exquisite, simple, Oriental love story, Ruth, 
has in it a bit that contains meaning for one's 
heart apart from its original significance: "Sit 

1 Matthew 8:23-27. 2 Matthew 8:15. 3 Isaiah 30:15. 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 109 

still, my daughter, until thou know how the 
matter will fall; for the man will not rest until 
he have finished the thing this day." l We who 
have Paul's prison psalm 2 find in its confident 
assertion — "He who began a good work will 
perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" — good 
reason for spelling Ruth's "man" with a capital 
M in our personal thinking of it, and finding 
in that sweet story fresh stimulus to sitting still. 

God revealed Himself to Elijah one morning 
early in "a sound of gentle stillness." 3 The 
shepherd singer says, "He leadeth me beside 
the waters of quietness." 4 Job's true comforter 
reminds that much troubled man, "When He 
giveth quietness, who then can condemn?" 5 
Solomon's God-given wisdom has this: "A tran- 
quil heart is the life of the flesh." 6 Fitting the 
Ninety-first Psalm into its likely historical setting 
of the thirty-third chapter of Exodus suggests 
this free translation of its first verse: "He that 
goeth aside to sit still in the secret place with the 
Most High shall find Him coming over so close 
that he shall be lodging under the shadow of the 
Almighty One." 7 These are some of the quiet 
verses that grew up around that first one. And 
there are more. They should be looked up 
slowly, and breathed in deeply. 

These statements reveal God. They reveal 
the true spirit in men who had found God, and 

J Ruth 3:18. 2 Philippians 1:6. 8 I. Kings 19:12 margin. 
4 Psalm 23:2. 5 Job34:29. 6 Proverbs 14:30 (American 
Revision). 'Psalm 91:1, with Exodus 33:7-11. 



1 1 o Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

were living in Him. They reveal the true spir- 
it of man. Quietness is the native air of man. 
All his powers work best when they work in an 
atmosphere of quiet. He can do better work; 
he can do more; he can do it more easily, for he 
is moving in his native element. 

Quietness is a characteristic of self-mastery, 
as well as an essential to it. But quietness does 
not mean sleepiness, stupidness. It does not 
mean the inactivity of laziness. It means keen 
alertness to all that is passing, full readiness to 
respond, with the steam up, and the hand on the 
throttle while all is still and under control. 

Living Musically. 

A second great trait of God is rhythm. Every- 
thing He does is done with the sweet beat and 
swing of harmony. The word we commonly use 
for this is method, or system. The finer word is 
rhythm; that brings out the ease and music of it. 

Nature is rhythmical. There's a fine swing 
to it. Rhythm is music. Life is musical, 
though many fail to see the leader's stick, and 
don't catch the pitch nor keep time, and so flat 
badly and drag, and lose the uplift of it all. All 
growth in life is by the musical pendulum-swing 
back and on, with the clock hands steadily tell- 
ing out the onward movement. 

The waters of the sea ever flow back and on 
from ebb tide toward flood. The moon rises 
and goes down to rise a bit higher each night, in 
a larger circle, until the full is reached, and disa- 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 1 1 1 

appears by the same gradual rhythmic swing. 
So we get a measure of time, a moon-th or month. 
The sun rises and falls through the same sort of 
rhythm, with its own variations, and a larger 
swing, from lowest point to highest and back to 
lowest, making the longer measure of our time. 
The seasons go from the ebb of dead winter to 
new spring life, then full flood of summer life, 
then autumn's decline, and dead winter, when 
for a while nature is at rest gathering vitality. 
The day rises gradually from modest dawn to 
full noon, and so back to its sleep at night. 

The musical rhythmic beat is in all nature 
and in all life. Were our ears less dulled, and 
less absorbed in a different sort of thing, we 
could ever hear the music of God in nature. 
Through the music of nature as well as its great 
beauty He speaks to us and reveals Himself. 
God is musical. Man's love of music, so uni- 
versal, is evidence of the self-mastery to which 
he was born. You can't force music. It must 
go in its own time, or it isn't music. We work 
best when we work musically, with a fine beat 
and swing to all our movements; not only best, 
but do most, and do it most easily. 

Soldiers on march cover a greater distance, 
with less tire, when the band is playing. Young 
people in the gymnasium get more enjoyment 
and more good out of the exercise when it is done 
to the sound of the piano. So with the little 
ones in the kindergarten. Tired -out men are 
rested by music. The world and the Church come 



112 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

together here; music is the common element in 
the theatre and the church service. Men love 
music. It is a bit of the original image of God 
in us. Men noted for great achievement are, in 
varying degree, always men of method, of rhythm, 
of swing in the thing they do best. Self-mastery 
means rhythm. It requires deep peace as its 
basis; that is, absence of discord, and of the jar- 
ring note. As one comes back into full sweet 
chord with God there comes the sweet peace, and 
then the full swing of nature's rhythm, and so 
the heritage of self-mastery. 

In Step with God. 

And God is unhurried; though our word for 
it is " slow." We say slow because the fever of sin 
is in our blood, and sends us down the road on a 
rush. All life is fevered. The heart beats faster 
than normal; the temperature is too high; the 
eyes have an unnatural brightness; the nerves 
are strung up dangerously near to a break. And 
all the time breaks are happening. But the fever 
seems to intensify. 

Man calls nature slow. The growth of the 
trees, the passing of the year through its seasons — 
we call these things slow. But nature reveals 
God. It tells both of Himself, and of His method 
of work. Nature seems slow because of this 
riot of fever in our blood. Nature is normal; 
the other is abnormal, not true to nature. 

I suppose the insects at our feet, if they could 
think, would probably think our movements very 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 113 

slow. How long it must seem that a man's foot 
stays on the ground when he is walking, even 
walking fast. The ant down there can scum- 
along several times its own length while that foot 
remains unmoved. But the length of the foot's 
stay on one spot tells of the size of the body it is 
holding up and swinging forward. 

God's movements seem so slow to us. His 
march through history, the coming of justice to 
the weak and oppressed, the shining of light in 
the dark places — all this has so often been called 
slow. God is so big, so great. He is moving 
steadily on. The apparent slowness only spells 
out the greatness of His size and of His plans. 
It takes time to swing great things forward. 
Time is but a hyphen between two eternities. 
God lives and moves in eternity. He breathes 
in the atmosphere of greatness. 

We are too apt to play the part of the ants 
scurrying hastily, hurriedly, breathlessly along, 
and when we do look up, if we do, think how 
slow that One up there does seem. But in this 
we are not true to our real selves. We are like 
God. We belong to eternity more than to time. 
It is this fever that's bothering us. Man needs 
the soothing, controlling touch of God ever upon 
his lif e if the fever is to go, and never to return. 

God is unhurried. He is keenly watching; 
never indifferent. He is accurate ; never missing 
the mark of His purpose. He is prompt; never 
ahead of time, and never late. Man was made 
in the image of God. As he turns his face full 



1 1 4 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

up to God, and breathes in slowly and fully his 
native air again, he will rise again into the fine 
self-mastery promised for him. 

But unhurried does not mean slow, nor in- 
different, nor sleepy. It means the measured, 
onward movement of a great spirit with a great 
purpose and limitless power behind. 

The other word for unhurriedness is patience. 
Nothing reveals strength more than patience, 
the power to hold still while waiting. Nothing 
disturbs much fine planning of good people more 
than the lack of patience. We are all children 
in our impatience. Patience is the most God- 
like quality that man can have. It has keen 
eyes, and quick ears, and a warm heart ; it means 
seeing keenly, and feeling deeply and acutely, 
yet holding still until the fulness of time has come 
for action. 

Self-mastery is keeping step with God. Not 
running ahead of Him, nor lagging behind Him, 
but going at His pace. We miss much of what 
He is saying to us because we don't keep His pace, 
and stay alongside. We lose the immense uplift 
of seeing His great plans and far-reaching move- 
ments in our feverish haste to do things for Him. 
Self-mastery means keeping His pace. It is un- 
hurried. 

Living in the Essentials. 

There is always a simplicity about God and His 
movements. His glory is overwhelming to hu- 
man eyes and senses. The chosen leaders of the 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 115 

new Hebrew nation could not bear the awful 
glory of His presence. Yet this but tells of the 
contrast between His glory and purity, and sin- 
ful man. "Clouds and darkness are round 
about Him." Yet this reveals the tenderness 
that protects our weak eyes from the dazzling 
sight of His presence. 

When He speaks in creation it is in simplest 
language. He walks in Eden in closest intimacy 
of fellowship with man with a simplicity very 
winsome. jThe revelation of Himself there suggests 
the simplicity of greatness. Greatness is simple. 
And man is very great for he is in the image of 
of God. As he allows the image to be repro- 
duced in him he increases in his simplicity. The 
spirit of self-mastery is always simple. 

Sin tangles things up. It makes life complex 
in a confused way. It blurs and dulls our un- 
derstanding, and weakens our grasp, and so 
things that are great but really simple seem con- 
fused to us. We get confused and tangled up. 
True life is simple. That word has been having 
new currency of late, and has been misunderstood 
some. It does not mean crude, nor immature, 
nor lacking in culture as some have thoughtlessly 
seemed to think. It means clear understanding 
of essentials and direct action. It sifts through 
the mix-up of our common life, and seizes upcn 
the things that are essential, and grasps them 
firmly, and is controlled accordingly. 

A huge piece of machinery seems very in- 
tricate and complex to one not experienced in 



1 1 6 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

its make-up and workings. But to the engineer 
its law of action is simple. A sense of dread 
sometimes fills the mind at the sight of giant 
wheels and beams in motion; a dread of the 
immense power, and of what might happen. 
But while conscious of the enormous power there, 
the engineer moves calmly in and out with his 
oil can, and touches the central wheels quietly. 
It is all simple to him, for he understands. 

Being with God gives one understanding. It 
clears his eyes. He comes more and more to see 
things through God's eyes. So he comes into 
the simplicity of God, and of the self-poise and 
self-mastery that are his birthright. He becomes 
simple in thinking of himself. While recognizing 
and reverencing the great powers within himself, 
he knows that these are a gijt to him. He has 
nothing that he hasn't received from Another. 
And these powers and talents can come to their 
full growth only under the constant influence and 
presence of their Giver. 

Man needs an atmosphere if he is to reveal his 
greatness. The tree must have its atmosphere 
of sunlight and air and water and food, else it 
cannot live. God is the atmosphere of man. 
Only in the presence of God, in closest intimacy 
with Him, under the warm touch of His breath, 
does he come into his growth. And getting clear 
in his relation to God simplifies a man's contact 
with his fellows, and simplifies all of his think- 
ing of life. Simplicity is seeing clearly what is 
essential and what is detail — non-essential, and 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 1 1 7 

being controlled accordingly. So man rises up 
into the full mastery of himself through his utter 
dependence upon God. 

But simple does not mean crude nor rude, not 
immature nor lacking in culture. It means 
being controlled by the essentials, which them- 
selves are always few and simple. 

Here are found great traits of self-mastery. It 
is quiet, and rhythmic; it is unhurried, and 
simple. 

The Foes 0} Selj-Mastery. 

There are four tempting demons of very subtle 
spirit constantly besieging the path of self-mas- 
tery. They are apt to come by turns, not all 
at once. They make a sort of relay race of it; 
as quickly as one seems held in check or winded, 
another takes its place, and the new arrival is 
usually the opposite of the last one. Yet oft- 
times they come in a bunch, all together, with a 
rush. These four enemies are lack of use, 
deficiency; over-use, prodigality; misuse, the 
inappropriate, the improper; and abuse, the 
injurious. 

The man who catches fire with a noble purpose 
is apt to be attacked by the temptation to over- 
use his powers. He feels the strong tide of the 
needs and of the possibilities of life. Life becomes 
to him an emergency, with himself as the chief 
factor in meeting it. He seems to be occupying 
the central position; so much depends upon him. 
His view of the need or possibility becomes too 



1 1 8 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

intense. It shuts out the broader view of a plan, 
the great wise plan of a master Planner in which 
he is simply a part ; an important part it may be, 
yet but a part; the responsibility for the whole 
is upon broader shoulders. This temptation 
comes very strongly, with the rush of a storm 
down the valley; many a man is swept off. his 
feet by it. 

The result is bad. Through over-use the man 
loses the chief thing with which to work and fight 
— his mastery of himself; the working, fighting 
power. The cause he would carry through is 
helped much, and may be hindered more, be- 
cause he does not bring to its aid the best weapon 
he can use — self-mastery. If a man in his weak- 
ness persist here the over-use is apt to lead to both 
misuse and abuse. His bodily strength fails; 
through that the judgment is impaired ; the vision 
blurs; the will grows unsteady, either weak or 
stubborn; and serious mistakes are made. Tired- 
out nerves lose the sense of proportion. Details 
look big and awesome. One's strength and gifts 
are used as they were not meant to be. 

And some catch fire from below, with the 
ignoble flames that belong lower down than the 
human level. They are caught by the fires of 
self-seeking. Self becomes and remains the hori- 
zon of the life. They have no eyes to see over 
the boundary lines of their own needs and lives. 
All the tides of life washing up and out are reck- 
oned only as incoming tides beating ever on 
the shores of self. The self-fires send out some 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 119 

brilliant sparks and flashes, and warm some needy- 
folks by their glow. But this is incidental; they 
are kindled and fed by the man primarily for 
himself. There is no sacrifice involved in the 
heat given out. It costs nothing. On the con- 
trary, it only feeds the flames of self-praise. Mis- 
use saps a life of the sweets of self-mastery. 

And some are kindled with the fiercely burning 
fires of low passion that burn out hot and quick. 
Or, the highly colored flames of pleasure get 
control. The masterful man is controlled in 
everything by a high, strong purpose, never by 
pleasure. Pleasure comes, and is all the keener, 
and leaves no dregs, because not sought. True 
pleasure is the sweet fragrance of life brought 
out under the pressure of a strong purpose. It 
should never be an end in itself. It comes as a 
restful cushion to a man absorbed in his purpose. 

Sometimes there is a smouldering or waiting 
of the soul-fires. The fire is there but has not 
yet broken out into flames. Then some event, 
simple in itself or perhaps great, is the whiff of 
fresh oxygen that brings the burst of flame. So 
it seems to have been with Jesus. With all rever- 
ence be it said that He seems to have first caught 
fire, as a boy, in Jerusalem. That visit to the 
holy city and temple was the match that ignited 
all the wondrous nature within. 

The man who catches fire sometimes lets that 
fire die down, and sometimes die out. That is 
always a tragedy. The man has had his vision. 
He has felt the upper pull upon his powers and 



1 20 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

responded to it, and then has yielded to the suc- 
tion of lower things. The lapping waves of 
selfishness have been allowed to creep in and 
put the fire out. This is one of the sad and fre- 
quent tragedies of human life. 

But some people never catch fire at all. They 
never wake up. Their powers lie sluggishly 
asleep while they drift slowly along with the mov- 
ing tide made by others. They never feel the 
blessed contagion of the fire of God. Their 
powers lie wrapped up in closely folded napkin- 
cloths, under heavy clods, that never know pick 
or spade. A man never amounts to anything 
until he catches fire. Lack of use robs many 
men of sejf-mastery, and robs the needy world 
of their needed help. 

Mastery means full use and full control; it 
does not mean repression, but full expression 
through control. It means control of the body, 
developed, and held to its true use; control of 
the mental powers developed fully and held 
steady to their true use; above all, control of 
spirit, the master of all, developed and reigning 
masterfully over all. The highest seems to yield 
last and hardest. Lack of control in the realm 
of one's spirit seems the commonest of all weak- 
nesses. It may crop out in the wild outburst 
of rage, or the sullen, silent rage yet more to be 
feared, with its tenacious memory and secret 
plottings. 

Men strong in every other way often seem weak 
here. And in time the whole fabric is affected. 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 1 2 1 

Nothing injures the body more than a fierce out- 
burst of temper. And in time the body, tired- 
out or weakened through disease, is responsible 
for much lack of control on the higher levels. 
Greater is he that controlleth his spirit than he 
who can control everything else but cannot do 
this. 

The Mastery of Jesus. 

That rarely masterful man Paul gives us a bit 
in one of his letters that is full of fascination 
here. He has been speaking of the fierce storms 
of passion that leave many a man badly ship- 
wrecked. Then he passes quickly on to speak 
of the man who masterfully rides all storms, and 
brings his cargo safely in. The latter man has 
a pilot on board who is responsible for the glad 
result. But instead of a storm figure Paul uses 
a fruit figure. He says: 1 "The fruit of the Spirit 
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, meekness, faithfulness," and then the 
climax is reached in "self-control," or self-mas- 
tery. 

The eight traits named first are really an analy- 
sis of that named last. Each is a phase of self- 
mastery. Note them again. Self-mastery is the 
tender outgoing of the heart towards God and all 
men; this is the normal attitude of man unhurt 
by sin; anything less or different is abnormal. 
It is the deep glow of the heart-fires regardless 
of the dampening dews of outer circumstances; 

1 Galatians 5: 22. 



122 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

the quiet, steady stillness of spirit even when 
winds blow hard and storms beat fiercely; the 
patient enduring without time-limit of misunder- 
standings and all that hurts through them; the 
gracious bending of one's strength to the needs of 
others ; the being thoroughly, wholesomely good ; 
the forgetting of one's self in the absorbing thought 
of God and of man;, and the full unflagging 
meeting of all that is due from us or needed 
from us. 

This winsome picture of self-mastery is the 
result of the Spirit's sway. This is a return to 
original conditions. The wondrous Spirit who 
created man's home, and then man himself, 
comes down at Jesus' bidding to live in us. He 
restores the original likeness blurred and rubbed 
out by sin. Here is the secret of self-mastery. 
A man never achieves it alone. Self is no match 
for self. It takes more than self to master self. 
This mastery is not by self ; it is oj self by Another 
living within and working out His plans by our re- 
quest and glad consent. He who in the early dawn 
of man's life breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life comes to rebreathe in us, and reproduce all 
of his original ideal. Man had broken with Him 
through sin. Now the break has been mended 
by Jesus, and the original likeness is restored by 
His Spirit within. 

The habitual cultivation of the friendly mastery 
of Jesus draws out most the mastery of self and 
of circumstances. The keeping of the body pure 
and sound and under the thumb of the will; the 



The Problem of Self-Mastery 123 

keeping of the mind clear and quiet and alert and 
ever bending towards a keener discipline; the 
keeping of the social contacts simple and warm 
and cheery; the keeping of the spirit ruggedly- 
strong and softly gentle ; the keeping of the heart 
pure in its loves and motives; the meeting of all 
difficulties and disappointments with the cheeri- 
ness which regards these as mere subways 
through to places farther up the road; and with 
all this, under and through, above and around all, 
a simple, confiding trust in God that sings most 
when the subway lights all go out — this is the 
roadway to self-mastery. 

It was trodden by Jesus when down here. It 
may be trodden by every man who yields to the 
mastery of Jesus. There is no mastery without 
the Master. The same Holy Spirit who con- 
trolled Jesus' human life has come down at Jesus' 
request to control our lives. With Him alongside, 
in control, a man can climb the road up to the 
heights. Let us go along with Him, 



THE PROBLEM OF PAIN 



The Commonness of Pain. 

Sorts of Pain. 

The Source of Pain. 

Jesus and Pain. 

The Mission of Pain. 

Compensations. 

Victory. 



The Problem of Pain 



The Commonness of Pain. 

Pain is as common in life as salt in the sea, and 
has the same bitter tang and the same power to 
purify. It stands with hungry hawk eyes at 
both ends of a man's life ; it comes ahead of him 
at birth, is usually felt at death, and keeps close 
by, with haunting vigilance, all the way between. 

It has all the qualities of the fire that burns, of 
the knife that cuts, of the bitter drink that makes 
you shrink back, and of the acid that eats its 
way insistently in. And some have found that it 
has other companion qualities; for fire cleanses, 
the surgeon's knife cuts out the bad, the bitter 
drink tones up, and the acid neutralizes the evil. 

Everybody has suffered pain, and does, and 
will. It is as common as sin, and has the same 
biting taste. One can scarcely walk the streets, 
or attend a church service without seeing the 
badge of pain in face, or form, or dress. The 
mail coming in, and the calling cards, contain 
the same dark reminder. Ever since Eden the 
broken sob of its music has sounded through 
time as a minor dirge, but with the constant in- 
terruption of discord, and of loss of all sense of 
rhythm. 

127 



128 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

In some lives the problem of pain pushes its 
keen edge in early; in some not for a long while; 
but sooner or later it comes, demanding impe- 
riously to be considered and explained. No 
problem has been more puzzling, or more puzzled 
over, and none more acute, because it edges its 
sharp way so very close into the life, and so near 
to the most tender and sacred relationships. It 
has baffled much study, and embittered the lives 
of thousands. But other thousands, though not 
understanding fully, have learned the secret of 
extracting sweets in the place where bitter grows. 
Many have found in it, or, better, through it, the 
elixir of a new life. 

Sorts oj Pain. 

Pain is of two general sorts, pain of body and 
pain of spirit. At the time of that first break in 
Eden, Eve was told that there would be pain of 
body in the natural course of her life, quite apart 
from sickness or disease, and that prophetic word 
has had continuous fulfilment through all the 
centuries since. Pain through disease which 
disturbs the body, and through the weakness 
that keeps it from its full stint of work, has been 
as common. Then pain of body through vio- 
lence, through man's inhumanity to his brothers, 
and through the ravages of war, has added 
intensity to the sum of suffering. 

Pain of spirit is keener, harder to bear, and 
lasts longer than pain of body. It comes through 
bitter remorse or regret over one's own conduct, 



The Problem of Pain 129 

through disappointed hopes and plans, through 
lack of being appreciated, and through lack of a 
return love. It comes through the subjection of 
our immature powers to discipline, which need 
not be painful but most often is, in proportion 
to the strength of the character so being matured ; 
it comes through the chafing of an unwilling 
spirit against the simple, natural discipline of life, 
which brings out fully our strength and beauty. 

Then in our relation to others pain comes 
through failure in those we love, through being 
deceived by them, and through the wounding of 
family pride. The pain suffered by our loved 
ones brings keen pain to us, and the pain of having 
them slip from our grasp out of life may be 
shorter, but is always sharper and severer, with 
the dull throbbing that so often follows. 

There is a sharp pain through culture, pro- 
portioned in its sharpness to the extent of the 
culture, and softened in its expression by the 
warmth of one's sympathy with others. The ear 
trained to finest harmonies is keenly sensitive 
to poor music. The eye trained to fine blend- 
ing of colors is pained by immature and untaught 
work. The mind drilled to the discriminating 
use of simple, strong language suffers a bit at 
contact with the reverse. The heart made pure 
through contact with God, and through painful 
heroic discipline, is pained at the sight and touch 
of sin. 

The heart grown tender through the Spirit of 
Jesus within is hurt by the suffering of the dis- 
9 



i 30 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

tressed. The spirit made eager for the highest 
ideals in life through the study of the Bible, the 
classic of ideals, is pained over the conditions 
prevalent in all walks of life. The man who 
knows the blessedness of knowing God bleeds at 
heart for those ignorant of Him. 

The emergency that the whole world is in 
through sin calls for sacrifices that bring great 
pain of spirit. A young man in a small church 
college in the middle West was stirred by the needs 
of the foreign mission fields. He determined to 
offer his life and service to help meet that need. 
But before committing himself actively with his 
church authorities he wrote to her who had given 
him life, telling her of the burning desire in his 
heart, and asking her consent. By and by the 
answering letter came. It was blotted with 
tears. Its pages brought up a vivid picture of 
that mother's face and heart. She replied, in 
effect giving her consent, and then writing down 
these words : "I never knew until now how much 
it cost God to give His Son." 

Many a one has suffered all these different 
sorts of pain at some time, and many of them at 
the same time. They all gather within the hu- 
man spirit, incased temporarily in a human body. 
Job suffered pocket pain through loss of property, 
heart pain through loss of his children, pain of 
body through disease, pain to his pride through 
loss of prestige and the criticism of his friends, 
pain of spirit in puzzling over why it all came to 
him; then the hardest bodily pain in continued 



The Problem of Pain 131 

pain, and at the last the severest spirit pain in 
realizing how different he was from the God he 
worshipped. 

The Source 0} Pain. 

Pain is the distressed outcry of a broken order; 
pain of body comes through some breaking of 
nature's arrangements there; pain of spirit 
through consciousness of elements within or 
without that strain and jar, and clash and break. 
All pain is a result of sin, somebody's sin, some- 
time, somewhere. The connection can rarely 
be traced, and never traced fully, but it is there. 

That connection may be direct, where a man's 
own actions cause the break that cries out its 
distress in pain. Through ignorance of the body's 
nature and. needs, or through thoughtlessness or 
passionate desire where we do know, the break 
is made. The pain does not always come at once. 
Nature is very patient and long-suffering, but 
come it will,, however long the wait, for she is 
likewise very exacting. Countless instances of so 
called "mysterious providences" are a result of 
hardships we thoughtlessly or wilfully inflict 
upon our bodies. 

For a number of years I have been trying to 
observe closely instances where sickness and death 
have come, causing a great shock and deep sorrow, 
and either criticisms of God or a long drawn sob 
over the strange dispensations of providence. 
Yet from the bits of information available it was, 
in each instance, clearly evident that the death 



1 3 2 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

that seemed so untimely and strange could be 
traced directly to the person's own acts done in 
ignorance; but most times, if not always, a 
thoughtless ignorance that a bit of thinking could 
have prevented. 

Then there is the indirect or more remote con- 
nection. Whatever we believe about original 
sin as a teaching of moral truth, we are all com- 
pelled to believe in a transmission, through the 
blood, of traits that are a result of sin in those 
who have lived before us, either near or remote. 
That physical tracts and ailments pass faithfully 
and ruthlessly on through generations is fa- 
miliar enough. Most men come into life with 
the story of somebody's sin, whether through 
carelessness or wilfulness, written down on the 
tablet of their bodies. 

It is extremely common to hear work spoken of 
as a curse, as though a punishment for man's sin, 
or a result of his sin. Yet work itself is in no 
sense a curse, but a positive delight, and a help. 
But the conditions that sin has woven around 
work have made much of it a straining, grinding 
drudgery. The break of sin left and leaves man 
with less than his normal strength. It has af- 
fected the earth so that it does not yield so read- 
ily to his efforts, and further increases his stint of 
work by producing thorns and such growths as 
must be fought and overcome. And so with less 
than nature's allowance of strength, and more 
than nature's allotted task, very much work be- 
comes to thousands a grinding, slaving, cheerless 



The Problem of Pain 133 

round that brings pain. It can all be traced to 
sin, the break in the natural order. 

Job's friends, or critics, supposed that his pain 
and numerous distresses were a punishment sent 
by God because of his sin. Job resents such talk. 
He felt instinctively that he had been on such 
terms with God as to shut out any such thought 
as punishment. Let it be remembered that God 
is not punishing men in the sending of pain and 
affliction. God is not dealing with men in judg- 
ment; if He were the case would be settled at 
once for all of us. Judgment is reserved for 
future final settlement. And even then punish- 
ment is not a thing that God chooses to be meted 
out to us as a judgment for our misdeeds. It is 
something included in the sin itself. The worst 
thing God could do to any man would be to leave 
him utterly alone to the working out of his sin. 
In great graciousness He does not do that. But 
He does keep hands off in part, and permits much 
of the result of sin to work its way out. And so 
pain comes through the break in the natural 
order. 

The first mention of pain m tne Bible is in 
connection with the difficulty with which woman 
would perform the most difficult and delicate 
task entrusted to her. All the life of the body 
is from God. The natural life is lived in full 
contact with Him. That first sin was a break 
with God. Any break interrupts partially the 
flow of life from Him to us. The bodily duties 
are then done with difficulty, for some of its vital- 



134 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

ity has been cut off. In the most difficult duty the 
lack is most keenly felt. 

Had we fulness of knowledge, and subtlety of 
insight, every bit of pain could be traced clearly, 
logically, step by step back to some act of sin. 
And the tracing would be thought a strangely 
interwoven network of sin and that which sin 
causes. This does not necessarily mean that the 
pain is the result of the sin of the man who suffers 
the pain. Clearly there is a vast amount of pain 
on account of others' acts. 

Life is such an intricate network that no man 
can move or breathe without affecting somebody 
else. How terribly selfish sin is. Every act of 
sin brings pain to somebody else, to those nearest 
and most tenderly loved, and those at the farthest 
reach of influence. Jesus suffered severest, keen- 
est pain of both body and spirit through sin — 
the sin of others. Every bit of pain that came 
to Him came either through particular acts of 
sin, or through the whole fog of sin that envel- 
oped His life as an atmosphere. 

There seems to be on record in the Bible just 
one exception to this. Jacob was lamed in his 
body by the strange touch in the night wrestle, 
in the dark, done by Jabbok's narrow waters. 
A direct act of God afflicted the natural order of 
his body. Yet this seems to be the only instance 
of the sort mentioned in the long list of Bible 
biographies. And, too, there may not have been 
actual bodily pain, though there was a crippled 
body hindering and hampering his activity. The 



The Problem of Pain 135. 

condition of his body gave his spirit keen pain, no 
doubt; yet that was because it reminded him at 
every step of his wilful stubbornness against God, 
and God's plan. 

And mark keenly that here this unusual thing 
was done for service' sake. God's plan for a 
world centred at this stage in this one man. 
In His passionate outreach for a race, He was 
shut in to using Jacob. The unusual act 
told the greatness and the acuteness of the 
emergency. 

So there may be in rare cases a direct touch 
of God when some great purpose requires it. 
But clearly that is very rare. God does not need 
to resort to such measures, as a rule. There are 
always enough doorways opened through sin's 
breaks to give all the opportunity needed for dis- 
ciplinary work. The rareness of such action 
gives peculiar emphasis to the general principle 
that pain comes through the natural channel of a 
break in the natural order. 

The vast, intricate, subtly intangible, but ter- 
ribly real network of sin envelops all life. One 
cannot move without touching and being touched 
by its meshes. The atmosphere of life has be- 
come affected by sin as by a pervasive gray fog. 
One cannot draw the breath of life, however lack- 
ing in mental or spirit culture, without suffering 
pain, however little he may think of it. The 
very stupidness to pain at times spells out the 
commonness of it, and its hardening, dulling effect 
upon the spirit. 



136 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Jesus and Pain. 

But it has been said that Jesus came to bear our 
sins, and all of their results; that through His 
sacrifice not only are our sins forgiven, but our 
bodies are to be healed, and all sickness and pain 
to be removed. It is said that Jesus came to 
destroy the works of the devil, and this has been 
taken to mean to destroy both sin and all of its 
results. And all of this is true, blessedly and 
wondrously true. Yet simply to say that much 
is not to tell the whole of the truth. There is 
more to be added to make clear how sweeping 
Jesus' work is, not only for all the life of a man, 
but for all men. 

The salvation from sin, and all its results, that 
Jesus came to work out is not completed. It is 
completed so far as He is concerned, but not so 
far as the world is concerned. It -is complete in 
His dying and rising, but not in its application. 
The "finished work of Christ" for the world is 
finished by Him, but not finished in it. The 
salvation worked out on the cross is to be worked 
out among men. Each man's salvation is worked 
out for him, but not yet fully worked out in 
him. 

The present is a transition period, a long period, 
it is true, now counted into the twentieth cen- 
tury, yet a transition period, preparing the way 
for a period of fulness. It is a time of working 
and waiting and looking forward to something 
much better. Those who stood closest to Jesus 



The Problem of Pain 137 

preached x that He would remain away until His 
dying for all men had been made known to all 
men, then He would return to carry out the ful- 
ness of His plan of saving men. 

Paul says that then Jesus will put down all our 
enemies including the last — death, the culmina- 
tion of all. The fulness of our salvation waits 
upon the spreading of the news of Jesus to all 
men. Here is a strong inner motive for world- 
wide evangelization. The carrying out fully of 
the Master's plan in that will bring to us the 
fulness of our freeness from sin and all its re- 
sults. 

But, we are reminded, Jesus healed disease 
when here, and relieved every form of bodily 
distress. Yes, He did. The Gospel days were 
sample days of the Kingdom. Jesus had not 
yet been accepted, and so the Kingdom was not 
set up. He had not yet been finally rejected, 
but was wooing the nation, and so He gave illus- 
trations of Kingdom days and of Kingdom power. 
We live in the Church period. The Church occu- 
pies the gap in the Kingdom. When the Church 
mission is completed the Kingdom will come in, 
with the Church itself as a part of the larger 
movement. Healing, removal of pain, is a law 
for all in the Kingdom; it is a privilege in the 
Church for those who will accept it; and a gift 
to be exercised by the very few who can be 
entrusted with it. 

1 Acts 3:21; Romans 8: 20-23; I. Corinthians 15: 23-26^. 
with Matthew 24: 14. 



138 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

The Mission 0} Pain. 

This leads at once to the question of the mis- 
sion of pain. Pain has a great mission. While 
God does not send pain, He lets it stay, though 
He might intervene and take it away. While as 
a rule, with possibly rare exceptions, it comes 
through sin, it remains through the deliberate 
purpose of God. God has a great purpose of 
love in pain. He uses it as His teacher. It is 
the greatest of all His great teachers. It charges 
the very highest rates, insists upon the severest 
discipline, will tolerate nothing short of the high- 
est ideal, needs our sympathetic help in working, 
and produces the very finest results. 

God's greatest struggle has been with the hu- 
man will. He made man a sovereign in his will, 
and right well man has proven his sovereignty. 
All of the great wealth of God's love and plan- 
ning can be given only by our own free consent. 
Sin has twisted our eyes. We prefer something 
else to God's way. Our preference is not good; 
it is bad ; only His is good. He insists upon giv- 
ing His best. It can be given only through our/con- 
sent. So His greatest task has been with man's 
will, to get man's consent to live on God's plan, 
and receive the wealth of God's planning. A great 
task it has been; God's hardest task; sometimes 
an impossible task; some men won't yield. It has 
been a stupendous task, for man's will has in it the 
strength of God's will. And sin has swung the will's 
natural strength over to the extreme of obstinacy. 



The Problem of Pain 139 

And so God has had to use the greatest thing 
He could find to overcome the bad, weak obsti- 
nacy in man's will. Pain is His severest, most 
thorough, oftentimes his only successful agent. 
He does not make it. Sin made it. He uses it. 
It is a bit of the diplomacy of love that takes a re- 
sult of bad, and uses it to offset the bad, and get 
good. His love must be very great to hold Him 
steady to His purpose; for what pains any man 
pains God too, because it pains the man. 

There is nothing that so breaks the stubborn- 
ness of a man's spirit, and bends the obstinacy 
of his will, as pain. It comes eating its way in so 
subtly, so cuttingly, so relentlessly and insistently, 
that all the footing slips out from under a man, 
his jaws relax, and his fist loosens into a hand 
again. Frequently the stiffest-set jaws will con- 
sent to relax only under the peculiarly persuasive 
edge of the knife of pain. 

In that old rare gem of literature, the book of 
Job, the evil that came to Job came through nat- 
ural channels, at the secret instigation of the evil 
one, by permission of God, and strictly within 
the limits He set. When the purpose of God in 
the moulding of Job's character was secured, 
the pain was quickly removed, and greater bless- 
ings than ever he had known were poured out 
lavishly upon him. 

There is an intensely vivid picture of God's 
love, its yearningness, and strong patience, and 
dissatisfaction with less than the best. It is in 
Malachi-s prophecy. The expert workman in 



140 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

refining metals sits patiently over the pot of liquid 
metal, picking out the dross sent up to the sur- 
face by the intense fire, watching keenly for every 
speck and spot, until by and by his own face is 
clearly reflected in that over which he is working. 
Then, the process complete, the metal pure, the 
fire is withdrawn. Its work is done. 

So, we are told, God does. Pain is a fire, 
sometimes heated seven times hotter than usual. 
God's love and great ideal for us hold Him 
steady while the dross is being removed. He is 
not content until He sees again clearly reflected 
that great likeness of Himself in which we were 
originally made. When the likeness is clear and 
full the fire is withdrawn. And in the after- 
glory that shall come the pain will seem light, 
and the time only a moment; yet how impos- 
sible that often seems at the time of suffer- 
ing. 

The last time I heard Mrs. Margaret Bottome 
she told of meeting an old friend in Europe. This 
friend was an unusually gifted woman, who knew 
much of the world's culture and prestige. She 
had had a bad break in health, and was seeking 
to find recovery abroad. As Mrs. Bottome met 
her, so great was the change in her friend's ap- 
pearance through the [illness that she involun- 
tarily exclaimed, "What a wreck!" And the 
friend quickly replied, with her soul in her voice, 
"Any wreck for such a shore!" She was al- 
ready getting a taste of the after-glory. Yet had 
she gone to school to God with her will earlier, 



The Problem of Pain 1 4 1 

her bark would have reached the same shore by 
straight sailing instead of by stranding. 

Compensations. 

Pain has great compensations. Its power to 
purify and refine is very great. It shakes loose, 
and sifts carefully out, the coarse and poor and 
bad. It weaves over the texture of one's life into 
a much finer fabric. The fire that burns also 
cleanses; the knife that hurts so is removing 
that which will hurt more seriously; the bitter 
draught from which we draw back so strongly 
has great tonic power. But the pain needs help 
to do its best work. There needs to be a looking 
steadily through the pain up to the great purpose 
of God, and on to the compensations, if it is to 
produce the finest results. To be made pure and 
fine is a full compensation for great pain. 

Then there is the sympathy of Jesus. To use 
the word sympathy of Him in this way is to say 
that He knew pain. He knew it with a greater 
intimacy than any other human that has trodden 
the earth, for He was more keenly sensitive to it. 
Every pain that man has suffered Jesus suffered, 
except of course that coming through remorse or 
regret. Every pain that man knows was intensi- 
fied in Jesus; the purity of His nature, the sin- 
lessness of His life, the sensitiveness of His great 
spirit made Him more keenly alive to pain, and so 
made it the greater as experienced by Him. 

But more than that, He went through the trying 
and maturing experiences of His life that so He 



142 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

might have a perfect sympathy with our humanity. 
He was made perfect in His humanity by the 
experiences He went through. Only so can a 
man learn. Jesus was perfectly human in going 
through human experiences. He did it purposely, 
with a great, strong purpose, that He might be 
one with us. So He becomes our keen, warm 
sympathizer. 

He suffered pain that so He might help us in 
our suffering of pain. He can come near be- 
cause He knows by touch what we know. There 
is marvellous compensation in this, the sympathy 
of such a one as Jesus. 

A man who knows anything at all of the win- 
someness and attractiveness of Jesus would be 
glad to go anywhere for the chance of getting 
closer to Him. He doesn't mind a rough road 
if in it the Master draws nearer ; doesn't mind it I 
— he prefers it under such circumstances. The 
wild storm on the sea is welcomed if so you feel 
His arm tighter around you, and His presence 
more tenderly near, and His face almost seen by 
your outer eyes. 

Jesus relieved suffering when down here long 
ago. He seemed to delight in relieving it. He 
would fairly wear Himself out in caring for men, 
though He had rare wisdom to avoid the bad ex- 
tremes that we know so well. He seemed 
to forget His own needs as long as there was 
any needy body waiting a chance to be healed. 
Those great miracles of healing were not done 
to prove His divinity; they were done because 



The Problem of Pain 143 

He was divine; it was the love of divinity go- 
ing out eagerly to His needy race of men. 
They did prove His divinity, incidentally; but 
were not done for that purpose, but to relieve 
men. So He reveals to us His feeling towards 
pain. He knows its sharp, cutting edge. He has 
power to remove it. He will remove it for us 
now if so the higher thing in mind can be reached 
too. He could, and would, remove it for more 
if there were more reaching up after the highest. 
When the pain remains, so does He. When it 
seems sharpest He comes nearest. And amid the 
tugging twinges His presence makes one sing joy- 
ously, though often with a tremor in the voice, — 

"E'en though it be a cross 
That raiseth me, 
Still all my song shall be, 
Nearer, my God, to Thee." 

Then there is the compensation of being Jesus' 
messenger to others. Suffering qualifies us for 
ministering to those who suffer. Without doubt 
God permits some experiences to come to us that 
so He may use us to help others passing through 
just such experiences. I recall an English clergy- 
man speaking of this at a conference in Boston. 
He had gone through a most trying experience. 
For days, he said, all was dark to him. He could 
not understand the way he was being led. At 
last light broke in through a particular passage 
of Scripture, and all cleared up. He preached on 
that passage the next Sabbath morning. 

At the close of the service one of his members 



144 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

came up with eyes aglow, and surprise in her 
voice, and said, "How did you know what I have 
been passing through ? " He said he didn't know. 
Then she explained that he had spoken of her 
identical experience, and through his message 
the light and peace had come anew to her. Others 
spoke in surprise of the same thing happening 
to them. Then he understood, and was grateful 
indeed to be God's messenger. And more than 
grateful, he was willing to go through any 
experience the Master might send if so he could 
better serve Him among his own fellows. Even 
so must God do in teaching men. We can tell 
to others only what we know personally. He 
can use in telling the truth only those who know 
it. Experience is equipment for service. Grief 
qualifies us to help those with like grief. 

There is a right use of grief and a wrong, weak 
use of it. Its right use is to let it be a motive im- 
pelling us to help those who have had the same 
trying experience. Its wrong and weak use is to 
let it remain simply an emotion draining our 
strength. In the midst of his great sorrow Ten- 
nyson wrote — 

" Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 
For those that here we see no more." 

We should ring it out, and resolutely keep it out, 
as a mere emotion that saps and wears. 

Activity in service is a help in bearing what 
comes. Pain has its temptations. One of them 
is the use of moral chloroform ; the dulling of our 



The Problem of Pain 145 

sense of pain in a round of dissipation, or of dis- 
tracting gayety. It only puts off the evil hour 
of feeling it more keenly than ever, with less of 
moral strength with which to bear it. 

There are, too, some wondrous compensations 
in that keen pain of having the one who has been 
by your side, a bit of your very self, slip from 
your grasp, out of reach, into the other life. To 
have known love, to have loved and been loved, 
is to have known the sweetest and most lasting of 
all life's joys. It makes one the stronger and 
gentler. The love that has stood the test of time 
weaves the finest threads into the life web. To 
love is to live. The life is richer and deeper, finer 
and more fragrant, for the love that has come in, 
and that has been drawn out, even though for a 
time the one loved and loving has slipped from 
your side upwards. 

Then there is the heritage of a memory that will 
grow in its fragrance and richness with the passing 
days. That is one of the cushions to ease the 
heart, for the bit of time in between now and the 
future meeting. And then we must not be for- 
getting that the loss is of companionship down 
here; all of that; yet only that. That is much, 
yet it is only for a while, that the old Book calls 
little, "how little! how little!" * 

"A day and you will meet; 
A night and you will greet." 2 

1 Hebrews 10:37, literally, "for yet a little while — how 
little, how little, and He" etc. 
2 Maltbie D. Babcock. 
10 



1 46 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

But when you miss present companionship, 
there is great joy in thinking over the wondrous 
companionship enjoyed by the one loved, and 
now gone. The companionship of Jesus now 
makes that face all alight with the radiance from 
His, while the marvellous music of the homeland 
fills ears and heart. Your loved one, side by 
side with the Master, thinks of you, and is quiet 
and glad for all the joy coming to you, and all the 
loving sovereignty of Jesus over your life. He 
is enjoying the fulness of life. 

" This is the death of death, 
To breathe away a breath, 
And know the end of strife, 
And taste the endless life. 
And joy without a fear, 
And smile without a tear, 
And work, nor care, nor rest, 
And find the last the best." * 

And if it be the one of closest tie who has gone r 
a husband or wife, leaving a child in your care, 
there is more yet of sweet, hallowed compensation* 
It is the highest relation of life that yields the 
finest fragrance. For there is the fine fruit of your 
love, a precious new life, God's gift to you reveal- 
ing and cementing earth's highest, human love. In 
your child, his or hers likewise who has gone, 
that loved one comes again to you, and abides 
ever with you. And yours is the unspeakable 
privilege of moulding into finest character this 
bit of your loved one's life left behind with you. 
This is a great compensation. 

1 Maltbie D. Babcock. 



The Problem of Pain 147 

And so in the midst of greatest pain there may 
come the sweetest rest of spirit, because of these 
great compensations. And, more than all else, 
because of the presence of the greatest Sufferer 
and greatest Sympathizer as our closest Friend. 
Through Him is rest in pain of any sort. 

"There is a rest that deeper grows 

In midst of pain and strife; 
A mighty conscious willed repose 

In depth of deepest life. 
To have and hold the precious prize 

No need of jealous fear; 
But windows open to the skies, 

And skill to read the stars. 

Who dwelleth in that secret place, 

Where tumult enters not, 
Is never cold with terror base, 

Never with anger hot. 
For if an evil past should dare 

His very heart invest, 
God is his deeper heart, and there 

He enters into rest. 

When mighty sea winds madly blow, 

And tear the scattered waves, 
Peaceful as summer woods below 

Lie darkling ocean caves. 
The wind of words may toss my heart, 

But what is that to me! 
'Tis but a surface storm — Thou art 

My deep, still, resting sea." * 

Victory. 

But there is a gladder message yet for the bells 
to ring out tunefully to all men. It is this — there 

1 George MacDonald. 



148 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

is to be victory over pain. It will be a full vic- 
tory too, with the flags flying, and the music filling 
all the air, and sweetest in its rilling of all the heart. 

There are certain foretastes of victory. The 
nearer we come to living in full touch with God, 
with intelligent knowledge of the nature and 
needs of our bodies, the nearer shall we come to 
a life free from bodily pain. This will not re- 
move bodily pain and discomfort wholly, for we 
are a bit of all that has gone before. Each man 
is a connecting link between two generations. 
He may change the stream of life flowing into the 
next generation, and he may change a good bit 
the stream of life he received from his fathers, but 
never wholly. 

Neither does this affect the pain of spirit 
through the contact of culture with men and con- 
ditions around us. The nearer God one gets 
and the closer to His ideal for us he grows, the 
greater is the pain over the ravages of sin, but the 
steadier too is the faith that sees through to the 
end of victory. 

There is, through Jesus, victory in pain over 
pain. The hurt remains, but the sting has been 
extracted. With Him alongside, close up, and the 
clearer vision of the great purpose, and through 
to the end, the pain of pain lessens and softens, 
even while the outer pain remains. 

Then there is the final victory. Jesus' resur- 
rection is called a first fruits by Paul. It is a 
wondrous conception of a winsome truth. First 
fruits is the language of harvest. The first fruits 



The Problem of Pain 1 49 

is the beginning of the harvest; the great crop 
remains to be gathered. 

There has been a harvest of pain; there is to 
be a harvest of painlessness. There has been a 
harvest of sorrow; there will be one of joy. 
There has been a great harvest of death, of sep- 
aration, of breakings; there is to be a greater 
harvest of life, of reunion, of tying up all the old 
breaks into knots that no fingers will ever undo. 

The harvest of pain and sorrow, of death and 
breakings, has been the result of sin's sowing. 
The new harvest of painless, joyous, reunited 
life is through the sowing by Jesus of His own 
life down among men. Jesus is greater than 
sin. The coming harvest will be so great as to 
make the others forgotten. The work that Jesus 
finished on the cross and the resurrection morning 
is to be finished in all the earth. The first fruits 
is to be followed by a great full fruits. 

The Bible reaches a thrilling climax in the clos- 
ing chapter of its closing book. One can believe 
anew in the divine guidance of the men who put 
these books of the Bible together as he comes to 
the climax of surpassing splendor at its close. 

The new glory is revealed as a new city. The 
city has been the superlative of human life. 
There bad has been worse, and good best. The 
momentum of man's activities has drawn to the 
city centre the leadership of life. On the bad 
side the city has become a condensed epitome of 
darkness and poverty, of pain and misery, of 
sin and distress. Here in John's great vision it 



150 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

becomes the glorified condensation of all that 
God's love has planned for man. 

The presence of God is its glorifying, trans- 
forming, radiating atmosphere. "The Lamb is 
the light thereof." Death has been cast out. 
There is no mourning, nor crying, nor pain. All 
the former things are passed away. And in a fine 
touch it is said that God Himself "shall wipe 
away every tear from their eyes." That word 
"away" might better read "out"; "shall wipe out 
every tear." The tear forced out under pain's 
pressure shall be annihilated, for pain itself has 
been wiped completely out. 

"And there shall be no curse any more, and the 
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein ; 
and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall 
see His face ; and His name shall be on their 
foreheads. And there shall be night no more; 
and they need no light of lamp, neither light of 
sun ; for the Lord God shall give them light ; and 
they shall reign unto the ages of the ages." 

The old order has completely passed away. 
The victory over pain is final and full through 
Jesus. 



THE PROBLEM OF GUIDANCE 



A Guide Over Life's Trail. 

God Plans Every Life. 

God Tells us His Plan for us. 

Accepting God's Plan. 

A Disciplined Judgment 

Unhurried Waiting. 

Guided in Judgment. 

The Boys and the Tramps. 

Instructed in the Night Seasons. 

Finding the Life-plan. 

"My Sheep Hear My Voice." 



The Problem of Guidance 



A Guide over Life's Trail. 

Nobody thinks of climbing the dangerous 
passes and peaks of Switzerland without a guide. 
The experienced travellers are very careful about 
getting experienced guides. Even then a man 
sometimes loses his life. These guides have to 
learn the way at the risk of their own lives, and 
they take serious risks every time they climb. 
And this is the sphere where a man can see and 
feel with his outer material senses. 

How much more does a man need a guide for 
the climb on into the future days, where no man 
has yet learned how to see or feel an inch ahead. 
With all our great advances in knowledge and 
science, we don't know surely a clock's tick 
ahead what is coming. The coming year, and 
month, and day, — even the next moment is utterly 
hidden from our eyes. We are in Egyptian dark- 
ness that may be felt, and that is felt, about to-mor- 
row. We are used to it from the earliest birth of 
life, and move on with a certain steadiness, plan- 
ning, and shrewdly guessing how certain matters 
will go. 

That very steadiness of step in our common 
life, on into the unlit darkness of the next hour > 
153 



1 54 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

tells of a great Guide whose hand upon life all 
men have learned unconsciously to trust. But 
the factor of fear is never absent from human life, 
though it lessens steadily as one comes to know 
his Guide. The man who risks going alone in 
a dangerous mountain climb in daylight is reck- 
oned foolhardy. Even he wouldn't go in the 
dark night. How much worse is it to go alone on 
the life-climb without even a single ray of day- 
light to show the way. Yet many do just that. 
Foolhardy — would you say ? 

There is a tender awe in knowing that there is 
some One at your side guiding at every step, re- 
straining here, leading on there. He knows the 
way better than the oldest Swiss guide knows the 
mountain trail. He has love's concern that all 
shall go well with you. There is great peace for 
us in that, and with it a tender awe to think who 
He is, and that He is close up by your side. When 
you come to the splitting of the road into two, 
with a third path forking off from the others, 
there is peace in just holding steady and very 
quiet while you put out your hand and say, 
"Jesus, Master, guide here." And then to hear 
a Voice so soft that only in great quiet is it heard, 
softer than faintest breath on your cheek, or 
slightest touch on your arm, telling the way in 
fewest words or syllables — that makes the peace 
unspeakable. 

And if the road lead you into a thick, dark woods, 
and strange shadowy forms seem to threaten from 
behind the trees, you go quietly on singing a bit 



The Problem of Guidance 155 

of a song, because He led you there, and is lead- 
ing. That path may lead into some common- 
place Nazareth village, into some wilderness with 
untamed beasts, or into some thick Gethsemane 
grove of gnarly olives, or even up a Calvary hill 
outside a city wall, but you go steadily on with 
the path, and the song, and a joy full of glory, for 
the Master led you there, and has not gone away. 

And if perhaps the chosen road lead to crowds 
and great service and praise of men, you will be 
thinking it was His leading that brought you there, 
not your own wisdom or talent. He has some 
great purpose for these crowds, and may be some 
purpose through these crowds farther on. And 
you will be very careful not to disappoint or mar 
His plans. And, too, you will keep very quiet 
and close that the dust the crowd is raising may 
not bother your eyes and dim the vision of His 
face. 

And if sometimes the way be lonely and long, 
and the brambly thorn bushes on the sides scratch 
face and hands, and sharp stones cut your feet, 
you can, if you will be quiet enough, find a new 
softness to the strong arm of the Guide around 
you, and a new fragrance in His presence beside 
you ; and that will make you grateful for the rough- 
ness of the road, because it draws out more the 
fineness of His love, and of Himself. 

God Plans every Life. 

Guidance is entirely a matter of finding God's 
plan, and then following it. God has a plan for 



156 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

every life. He will lead us into it, and then lead 
us in it, step by step. He made man's home be- 
fore He made man. In the simple Genesis 
record He planned the man, of what sort he 
should be and what service he should do, before 
He made him. He planned the best, for He 
made him in His own image. He gave Himself, 
His breath, to insure that likeness, and later gave 
Himself again, His blood, to restore it. He 
planned a new trinity in making man, Himself 
and the man and the woman, for perfection of 
friendship requires three; and man was made 
for fulness of friendship with God. Every one 
needs two friends, one above to draw him up, 
and one alongside to draw him out — so God 
\planned. 

God has a plan thought out for the universe, and 
for our planet, and for each man upon it. The 
great emergency that sin has made in the world 
called for special planning. It controls much 
of His planning for our lives. He knows that 
emergency as no one else. He feels the keenness 
and stress of it beyond any other. He knows 
each man of us, our gifts and endowments, what 
we can do, and do best. He loves each of us de- 
votedly. The ambition of love is in His plan- 
ning. He has great wisdom. His plan is best 
for all the world, and for each man. 

The life of the great Hebrew pioneer Abram 
clearly was thought out, 1 and as clearly that of his 
lineal descendant, the great law-giver, 2 and that 
1 Genesis 12: 1 and on. 2 Exodus 2 and 3. 



The Problem of Guidance 157 

of his immediate successor, Joshua. 1 It was the 
consciousness that he was filling out God's plan 
for himself that held Jeremiah so steady to his 
difficult and thankless, dangerous task. 2 Paul, 
the man to whom we Gentile foreigners owe so 
much, had no doubt of this in his own life ; 3 
and he plainly set it down as a law of God's 
dealing with men. 4 The greater includes the less. 
God has no favorites. ( Every man's lif e is planned^ 
Every man should plan to live a planned life, 
the planned fife, planned by Another. Every 
man may. He is touching the very tip-top of 
human achievement who comes nearest to fitting 
into the plan thought out for him. This glorifies 
every life, no matter how lowly, or in how hidden 
away a corner; for the touch of God's plan is upon 
it. It dignifies one's life; it has been thought 
out by a God! 

"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them how we may." 

And that divine One will shape everything towards 
the end He has planned, if He may have our con- 
sent. 

iThjs is th e^ working basis of the whole proble m 
of gui dance, jt simplifies it much . It is not 
coaxing a friendly God to keep us along a path 
we have marked out for ourselves. It is finding 
and fitting into the plan lovingly thought out for 
us, and doing the service assigned to us in the 

1 Numbers 27:18 and on. 2 Jeremiah 1:4 and on. 

3 Acts 13: 2 and on. 4 I Corinthians 12:11, 18. 



158 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

great world-plan. ^ Guidance is a matter of find- 
ing God's plan and following it faithfully step by- 
step. ) A man should aim to have a keen under- 
standing of what God's plan for him is. 1 The 
likeness of God imprinted upon him puts him 
under obligation to find out the plan of God in- 
tended for him. 

The first great question for every one is whether 
he is going to go God's way, and to plan to fit into 
God's plan. The real stiff work in the problem 
of guidance is here. This must be settled first 
of all, and then kept settled. It can easily be 
settled, and it can be kept settled. Yet almost 
every man of us is bothered with either one or 
the other of those two things. But if a man will 
do this part of the sum up, the figuring out of the 
rest is assured; and more, it isn't hard. Let it 
once be fixed that a man's one ambition is to fit 
into God's plan for him, and he has a North Star 
ever in sight to guide him steadily over any sea, 
however shoreless it seem. He has a compass 
that points true in the thickest fog and fiercest 
storm, and regardless of magnetic rocks. 

God Tells us His Plan for us. 

iGod reveals his plan to a man . Of course He 
does. He naturally would if He expected a man 
to follow it. He has to tell it if we are to know it. 
He does tell it, and tells it in the plainest way. 
This is the second great factor in guidance. He 
not only reveals the plan to follow, and the path 

1 Ephesians 5:15-17. 



The Problem of Guidance 159 

to tread, but he is eager to do it. He takes every 
man into His confidence regarding the plan for 
his life. But His great trouble is to get our atten- 
tion so He can tell us. 

Ever since man lost the vision of G od's face 
in Eden, and the sound of His v oice, God has had 
to do unusual things to attract man's attention, 
and get him to understand His plan, and hold 
him to it. Our spirit-senses are dulled by si n. 
Something startling must frequently be used. 
The strange sight of a bush all aflame yet not 
burnt up takes hold of Moses' scholarly tempera- 
ment, and holds him quiet enough to hear the 
Voice and the plan. 

A fire eating up the meal that Gideon had 
prepared for his pilgrim guest tells that startled 
man of God's unsuspected presence, and secures 
his splendid leadership in His plan. A vision of 
overwhelming glory led Isaiah into the deeper 
devotion that changed his spirit and his career. 
As extreme a measure as laming his body is used 
to waken up the scheming Jacob, for he has a will 
strong enough to be stubborn, but not yet strong 
enough to yield. A vision with features utterly 
repugnant to the hungry Peter tells him of God's 
plan for his outside, outcast brothers. V For Paul, 
light so bright as to make the sun's light cast a 
shadow, and so blinding as to shut his outer 
eyes for days, that so the inner light might 
be lit, and the plan be seen. % And later, a needle- 
pointed thorn ever prodding, but softened with 
a wondrous Presence, to hold Paul to the plan. 



160 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

If something has come to you that seems very 
strange and unexplainable, better hold very quiet 
and still — God is probably trying to get your ear. 
He is talking; if you give your attention you will 
hear something. He needs some help; there is 
something to be done ; he wants you to give Him 
a hand, a lift, a life-lift. He is trying to attract 
your attention. If you give it and fall in heartily 
with his plan, you will understand what He has 
been doing, and when the thing that hurts has done 
its work it will likely be taken away. 

He reveals the general plan at once, but the 
steps in it only one at a time. He wants to keep 
us in touch all the time. 1 His plan needs two at 
each stage, Himself and you. We need to be 
trained to keep His pace. We are apt either to 
dash ahead or to lag behind. Both bother the 
plans. There is a fascination in noting how such 
strong men as Abraham 2 and Joshua 3 were told 
a step at a time what to do. As one step was 
taken the next became clear, and, that taken, 
cleared the next. Steady walking takes most 
strength. Some of us are good at a dashy eagle- 
flight up, or a quick spurt down the road, but we 
have not learned the walk-step yet. 4 

Accepting God's Plan. 

y^How may we know God's plan for us? No 

question has been asked more often, nor more 

1 Genesis 22:2; Matthew 2: 13. 

2 Genesis 12: i, 4 with 7; 17:9, 10 with 23, and 18: 1. 

3 Note first ten chapters of Joshua. 4 Isaiah 40:31. 



The Problem of Guidance 1 6 1 

earnestly than just this — " May I know certainly 
wh at God's plan for me _is?" And the deep 
glow of fire in the eye tells eloquently of the eager 
desire of the heart. Yes, surely we may know, 
and may know surely. He that is willing to do 
may know, and will know. The life-plan that 
has been thought out may be known, and there 
may be, too, the steady going along in the plan 
step by step without breaks. A man needn't 
ev en stub his toe, much less fall dow ji. 

The first essential to knowing God's plan is 
meekness. That simply means accepting Some- 
body's else plan for the life. Meekness is not weak-^ 
ness; it is strength using its strength in de-J 
liberately yielding to a higher will. Moses is 
called the meekest man because he yielded so 
fully and constantly to Somebody's else plan. 
He might have been the Pharaoh of the world's 
leading nation, but he chose to ally himself with 
a race of ex-slaves because that was Somebody's 
else plan for him. And the spirit of that choice 
pervaded his whole life. 

T Jes us was _ not the meekest ma n. He wa s 
meekness p ers onifi e d . The word gets a new 
fineness of meaning from His life. He might 
have swayed Athens and Corinth, the centres of 
the world's philosophies, with His philosophy of 
life, but He chose rather to teach the poor, for 
that was Another's plan for Him. He might have 
held in His steady grasp the reins of a new earthly 
government stronger than that of Rome, but He 
chose rather to win the government of men's 



1 62 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

hearts, for that was Another's plan for those hu- 
man years. 

He might have been the centre of the highest 
social circles of beautiful, cultured Antioch-on-the- 
Orontes, but He chose to grace and sweeten with 
His presence the homes of the lowly, for so His 
Father wished. His voice could have been used 
to give out music that would have classed Him 
as the world's greatest musician, but he chose 
to sing to babes, and to women and men tired out 
under heavy loads, for that was Another's plan. 

Those fingers of His could have chiselled marble 
and touched canvas into a life far beyond what 
marble and canvas have ever known, but He used 
them in ministering to sick and needy and tired- 
out folks, for so it had been planned for Him. 
-A^He came to carry out the plan of Another. That 
was the great meekness of His great strength. 

This quality of meekness lies at the very root 
of guidance. It makes the road simple and 
straight. The man eager to do what God wants 
done will know certainly what to do. 1 This is a 
family trait, by which the sons of the King may 
be recognized. 2 Those in the inner family circle 
of God have a fine passion for doing what He 
wants done. 

^) The second great essential in knowing God's 

^ plan is obedience. This is really saying the first 

thing over again. Obedience is meekness; it is 

meekness in action, in daily use. Obedience is 

practising meekness. It makes meekness effective. 

1 Psalm 25:9. a Romans 8: 14. 



The Problem of Guidance 163 

Meekness is accepting the plan; obedience is 
working it out bit by bit. Meekness is the atti- 
tude of one's spirit towards God ; obedience is the 
doing of the things He wants done. 

A Disciplined Judgment. 
I 2) There is a third essential of immense importance, 
and that is, listening to God. God is telling us the 
plan, and telling us the next step to take, but our 
ears bother us ; they are so dull. ( It is amazing 
how many deaf children there are in God's 
family. ) The deafness seems to grow with the 
years too. For usually the child-ear — whether 
a child in years, or in religious experience — is 
keen, though it needs training. There is nothing 
so necessary as keen, trained ears. Yet there 
seems to be nothing rarer. An endless amount 
of doubt and difficulty jn guidance can be traced 
back to this critical point. 

The favorite word for listening in the Bible is 
the word waiting. It is a great word full of simple 
yet wondrous meaning. It means the turning 
of the face full up to God so as to know by a look 
what He would suggest; hearing through the eyes. 
It is exquisitely put in the Psalms. God assures 
us that He is ever keeping His eye upon us so 
that by our looking up we can catch His eye and 
so know what to do. 1 

Irf It means on our side watching God's slightest 
(movement as intensely as a slave in those old times 
watched for the first and least suggestion of the 

1 Psalm 32:8. 



1 64 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

master's desire. 1 As the watch-guard on night 
duty upon the city wall in old Judea kept his eyes 
keenly towards the east to see the first gleam of the 
coming day that would relieve his long, lonely 
vigil 2 — so intensely and keenly we are to look 
towards God to get the first inkling of His will. 
The life is to he Ijyed w i th its fare always ta rried 
to God . 

But this can be put in a very homely, matter-of- 
fact way that may help yet more. ^There are three 
/things given us for guidance, the Word of God, 
/the Spirit of God, and our own sense, or reason- 
ing powers, our judgment^ These three are 
meant to agree. When they do agree in one the 
way is surely clear. When they do not agree, the 
only wise thing to do is to do nothing, to wait till 
they do agree. Usually the judgment is amiss 
and needs straightening up to the other two. 

The Word of God read habitually disciplines 
the judgment. There comes to be a settled con- 
viction as to God's character and preferences and 
ways of working. There comes, too, a keener 
use of one's thinking powers. The Spirit of God 
within makes plain the meaning of the Word, 
and adapts it to our needs in a very wonderful 
way. With the Book of God in his hands in 
'good plain type, and the Spirit of God in his heart, 
and the common sense with which we are all en- 
dowed, no man need be in doubt when acting 
Vtime comes, nor make any mis-steps. And this 
is said with keen consciousness of many a slip. 

1 Psalm 123: 1-2. 2 Psalm 130:5,6. 



The Problem of Guidance 165 

The great sheet-anchor bit in the old Book is 
in the Twenty-fifth Psalm: " The meek will He 
guide in judgment"; that is, in his mental pro- 
cesses. The American Revision uses the word 
''justice" in place of "judgment"; but the refer- 
ence clearly is to being just in one's decisions. 
Judgment is used in the sense of a decision. Here 
is the great simple promise regarding the process 
of guidance. 

As I sift over the facts and circumstances that 
bear upon the decision, I must make the Spirit of 
God's will guide my thinking. He will help me 
to see colorlessly, to weigh accurately, and to 
reach a right conclusion. This is putting guid- 
ance on the highest plane. God uses the think- 
ing powers He has given us. They need the dis- 
cipline of His Word, of His Spirit's indwelling, 
and of use. Questions of right and wrong are 
decided by the statements of the Word. Questions 
of what best to do are decided by the judgment, 
disciplined by the Word, and guided by the Spirit. 

Through habitual reading of the Word of God, 
in reverent dependence upon the Holy Spirit, for 
the purpose of learning God's will, there comes 
gradually to be a disciplined judgment, a simple 
common sense in weighing and deciding what 
best to do. There seems to be nothing much 
rarer nor scarcer than this. The personal color- 
ing and preferences and advantages get in so 
strong that they twist the eyesight badly. 

The passion for God's plan is the great counter- 
actant for the undue personal element. The 



1 66 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

steady, burning passion to do His will makes one 
forget all else, and yet makes him fit eagerly in 
where service is called for, but with no sense of 
having done some great thing even when he has. 
He is absorbed in some One else through whose 
power the thing was accomplished, and whose 
glory is the one dominant thought. 

Unhurried Waiting. 

V All of this is in that Twenty-fifth Psalm, the 
great guidance Psalm. It is written in the midst 
of difficulties and sore temptations. It should 
be studied much by the man seeking to under- 
stand guidance. It begins with of t- repeated prayer 
for guidance that reveals an earnest heart-desire 
to go God's way. The praying stirs the memory 
of this man writing to the fact that he hasn't al- 
ways chosen God's way, but preferred his own. 
It is the meek man who reverently "fears the 
Lord" who is guided and taught about the way 
to go. The path pointed out is not only the right 
one, but proves to be a loving one for him who is 
obedient, "unto such as keep his covenant and 
his testimonies." This meek, obedient man 
waits on God ; he is in the spirit of constant listen- 
ing. And he is guided in thinking out his de- 
cisions. He is instructed in the way to choose. 
God does the instructing; the man does the 
choosing; he is helped in his mental processes. 
The result specified is two-fold, great peace, his 
soul dwelling at ease ; and power or good success, 
his seed inheriting the land. 



The Problem of Guidance 167 

Then comes the great statement that the friend- 
ship of the Lord, the exchange of confidences, 
is given to such men, " and He will show them His 
covenant"; that is, what He has planned to do, 
and then the plans actually carried out. And 
the man writing emphasizes the true spirit that 
brings all this — "mine eyes are ever toward the 
Lord." Such a man will know surely how to go, 
and will have strength to go when the way is 
hard, and, more, will find the road to lead him into 
far more of blessing than he had ever thought of. 

The man who so waits upon God never decides 
anything hurriedly. His friends are likely to think 
him slow perhaps. He is unhurried. He may 
decide quickly sometimes, but that is because 
he has been brewing in secret over all the con- 
siderations. He is never hurried nor flurried. 
It is often hard to wait. Our natural impatience 
and our tired-out nerves prod us on when we 
should wait. It is always safe to wait. With 
the greatest need unmet, the keenest crises im- 
pending, it is safest to wait till we're clear; that 
is, clear as to the next thing to do ; and the next 
thing to do is always clear in time to do it. 

And yet more : this man who waits on God is 
so intent on getting God's plan done that he is 
not concerned about anything else. The plan 
he is in the process of shaping up may fail. But 
that will not concern him, for clearly it was not 
God's plan if under faithful attention it fails. 
Personal pride to have a plan carried through 
doesn't bother him a bit ; he cares only to carry 



1 68 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

through Somebody's else plan. Yet when the 
plan is clearly revealed, or clearly proves bit by 
bit to be the plan of the Master, he holds to it 
with a peculiar tenacity. And, as a matter of 
fact, the plan carefully decided upon in such a 
way doesn't fail. God is eager to reveal His 
plan, and He does to the man eager to know. 
The meek man is guided surely in his planning. 
There is a fine word from Luke's pen describ- 
ing the decision to go to Europe the morning 
after Paul's vision of the Macedonia man. Luke 
had joined Paul. Paul tells him his vision. 
" Straightway," he writes, "we sought to go forth 
into Macedonia, concluding that God had called 
us to preach the Gospel to them." * The old 
version says, " assuredly gathering" in place of 
"concluding." The word underneath suggests 
a putting together of this and that, and so draw- 
ing an inference. It describes the common pro- 
cess of thinking a thing out. In this case the 
evidence was very clear, but the word used for the 
thinking and talking it over is very helpful. They 
were being guided in their mental processes. 
God's law of progress is to take the next logical 
step. But one should not take a step when in 
doubt about its being the right one. 

Guided in Judgment. 

A drop of wine gives the flavor of the cask. 
A simple straw will show the direction of the 
wind. Very simple occurrences sometimes re- 

1 Acts 1 6: io, American Revision. 



The Problem of Guidance 169 

veal how God guides. Some very simple in- 
stances of this sort came to my attention recently. 
A woman who has a flock of poultry to attend 
noticed one morning that a brood of very young 
Plymouth Rocks were not well. They seemed 
droopy and distressed. She had been caring for 
them thoughtfully, and could not make out the 
cause of their distress. The thermometer in the 
brooder where the little ones made their home 
indicated a proper temperature. Her womanly 
heart was moved with pity for them. As she 
stood watching, perplexed, she thought of how 
God must look down and pity too, and leaning 
against the corner of the hen-house quietly 
prayed to be shown the difficulty. At once it 
occurred to her to examine the heating lamp in 
the brooder. It proved to need a larger burner 
to make enough heat; the thermometer was not 
registering accurately. The change was quickly 
made, the temperature rose, and the little chicks 
were soon happy and contented. 

A business man of Belfast, well known in that 
city, told this bit of his experience to a group of 
men in the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting room 
one noon. He is a builder, and recognized as an 
expert in that business. He had been called to 
examine a large building which was being seri- 
ously shaken and jarred by the motion of the ma- 
chinery. Efforts had been made to find why the 
machinery shook the building so, but they failed 
to reveal the defect in construction. He was 
called in as an expert. He examined the build- 



1 70 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

ing most thoroughly, but could find no faulty 
place. It was one of the best constructed build- 
ings he had ever examined, he said. He was 
much puzzled to know where the defect could 
be, and felt quite nonplussed. 

As he stood looking in his perplexity, he sent 
up a softly breathed prayer to be shown where 
the trouble was. At once his thought went to a 
certain large post or beam on which part of the 
machinery rested. He went on to notice that it 
was not properly adjusted. There was plainly 
the cause of the violent jarring of the building 
by the machinery. Yet he had gone painstak- 
ingly over the whole structure without finding it, 
as had other experts. The defect was pointed 
out and remedied, and all jarring ceased. Could 
there be simpler and yet more direct illustra- 
tions of the old bit, "The meek will He guide in 
his mental processes?" 

A small group of young men entrusted with the 
supervision of one of the great religious activi- 
ties among young men were spending a day in 
conference and prayer. Men were to be chosen 
for certain very important positions. A mistake 
in choosing would have very serious results. 
They talked over the men in mind and their 
suitability to the tasks involved, and prayed to- 
gether. A decision was reached about certain 
men, but reached tentatively, not decisively, not 
finally. The suggestion was made that they 
separate, and pray and think separately, and 
then come together again. The matter was so 



The Problem of Guidance 171 

serious that there must be no mis-step or mis- 
take. They did so, and while in prayer alone 
the conviction came that it would not be 
best to send a certain man tentatively decided 
upon for a certain post. More prayer and 
conference followed, and the arrangements were 
readjusted. 

So were these men guided in their mental pro- 
cesses. So were they guided to plan out unhur- 
riedly with utmost thoroughness their serious 
task. These men were keen Bible students, with 
discipline of judgment much above the average, 
and with a rare openness of mind to the sugges- 
tions of God's Spirit, as a result of long habit. 
Here was the habit into which they had been led 
through long experience, of being guided by the 
Spirit through their trained thinking powers. 
The withdrawal from each other's presence made 
them more susceptible to the presence of the One 
whose will they were bent on doing. 

The Boys and the Tramps. 

The Spirit of God adapts the words of the Bible 
to our needs with a simplicity that is winsome. 
He constantly breathes through and out of these 
pages, these old narrations, and verses, and sen- 
tences. He takes these words and speaks them 
with an inaudible but very distinct voice into one's 
mind. He gives them a precious meaning that 
fits wondrously and warmly into our needs. So 
it comes to pass that a passage will have a warm 
personal meaning fitting into some experience of 



172 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

one's life quite in addition to its first historical 
meaning. 

It is a bit of the versatility of Scripture that its 
words have both a historical and a philosophical 
meaning. As originally spoken they tell perhaps 
of some story in a certain man's life, and then the 
words so spoken and written are found to have a 
deeply simple philosophy that applies directly 
to life to-day. This strikingly brings out the 
fact that the Scriptures answer a double purpose. 
There is the first purpose for which they were 
written centuries ago, and then a present purpose 
in fitting into and helping our changing, daily 
needs, and adapted to each man's reading. 
Surely this old Book is inspired ; it is inbreathed 
with a living Spirit. There is a living presence 
in it fitting its words with a warm, living touch 
to every man and every circumstance. 

I had an illustration of this one summer in a 
New England village. I had gone to the prayer 
meeting in the old white-painted Congregational 
church. The subject was Bible study. In the 
social mingling afterwards a quiet little woman 
said to me, "I would like to tell you of a verse 
that helped me greatly one time." And I listened. 
I seemed to know at once that I was to get some- 
thing. I was standing close up to a sacred hu- 
man life, and was to be allowed to look in. I 
listened reverently and eagerly. 

Her story was a simple one. She lived on the 
edge of town, with the neighbors not very close. 
Her husband's business took him away much of 



The Problem of Guidance 173 

the time. This bit of experience came the pre- 
vious winter. She enjoyed the weekly prayer 
meeting and always planned to attend. Yet she 
knew, as she returned home from prayer meeting, 
that there was sure to be at least one tramp, and 
maybe more, taking a night's lodging in the barn 
back of the house. She was alone in the house 
so far as having a man who might protect her was 
concerned. Naturally enough that made her 
nervous and worried her. She prayed, and 
tried to be brave, but could not seem to quite 
shake off the timid worrying about it. 

At that same time the superintendent of the 
Sunday School had asked her to teach a class of 
boys. She had declined. She felt that she had 
no gift for teaching, and that she could not do it. 
But he gently persisted; he was sure she could; 
he needed a teacher for those boys ; it seemed so 
hard to find one ; would she not think it over and 
pray about it before finally deciding? And she 
had rather reluctantly agreed to this. These 
were the two things uppermost in her mind at this 
time, the danger threatening from the tramps, 
and the teaching of the boys. 

Her habit was to spend a little while each morn- 
ing with the Bible, reading and praying. This 
morning of which she told me her regular course 
of reading brought her to the fifty-first chapter of 
Isaiah. She was reading along in a meditative, 
unhurried way, praying softly as she read, and 
with those two things, the tramps and the boys, 
within easy reach in her underneath thoughts. 



1 74 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

She came to the sixteenth verse. "And," she 
said to me, "the first line of that verse seemed to 
stand out as though in bigger type : ' I have put 
my words in thy mouth.'' " Clearly that meant 
the boys. She grew quiet and still. The Master 
was speaking to her. She sat thinking about the 
class, with the feeling of hesitancy not wholly 
gone, and yet the decision clearly made. She 
would teach the boys the best she could, and He 
would be giving her the words. 

After a little prayer, still thinking about the 
boys, her eyes turned half mechanically to the 
page to continue the reading. "Then," she said 
to me, with a moistened glow in her eyes, "the 
next line stood out big just as the first had done : 
l And have covered thee in the shadow of mine 
hand. 1 " That meant the tramps. It seemed 
to her that the wondrous Spirit had taken these 
words, centuries old, spoken originally to the dis- 
tressed nation of Israel, and had with a wholly 
new, tender meaning spoken them into her heart 
in her need. And I felt sure, and feel sure, that 
she was right. And the order in which the mes- 
sage came seemed peculiarly helpful. First came 
the bit about the service needed from her, and as 
quickly as she responded to that call came the 
word of comfort for her personal needs. 

Instructed in the Night Seasons. 

The habit into which I have grown in making 
decisions, even about smaller matters, is to gather 
up all the information on the matter, thresh it out 



The Problem of Guidance 175 

and sift it over into the clearest shape possible, 
pray over it, be content to have it go either way- 
regardless of personal preferences, and then 
sleep over it. In the morning hour alone I am 
apt to know pretty clearly what to do. If not 
quite clear I wait a while longer, including some- 
times more than one night's sleep. The sleep 
induces a quietness in which the thing assumes 
clear shape. 

Then, too, there is a statement of the old Book 
that seems to me to fit in here, though I know well 
that some may think the interpretation of it rath- 
er fanciful. "So he giveth unto his beloved 
sleep "Ms the reading of both old and revised 
versions. But the margin gives this alternate 
reading: "So he giveth unto his beloved in 
sleep." I do not say that this is the first mean- 
ing of that tender old bit of the Book. I do not 
know. But I recall how He gives bodily strength 
in sleep, and has turned the tide of sickness and 
weakness in sleep, and I recall, too, that in the 
Old Testament times He used to reveal His plan 
to men in their sleep. 

The man who proved to be God's messenger 
to Job told that troubled man this : 

"God speaketh once, 
Yea twice, though man regardeth it not, 
In a dream, in a vision of the night, 
When deep sleep falleth upon men, 
In slumberings upon the bed; 
Then he openeth the ears of men, 
And sealeth their instruction." 2 
1 Psalm 127: 2. 2 Job 33: 14-18. 



1 76 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

And the sixteenth Psalm has this : 

"I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; 
Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons." 1 

I am not speaking of dreams, but only of this — 
that through the perfectly natural channel of the 
thoughts, He gives in sleep that which guides us 
when awake. There is here no element of the 
supernatural involved. Through nature's duly 
appointed channels, the mental processes, God 
in a time of greatest stillness clears the thinking 
and suggests what to do. 

Finding the Lije-plan. 

The great question of finding out the lije-plan 
has puzzled a great many, and should have a 
special word here. The fact that there is a life- 
plan for every one, and that God is naturally 
eager to tell it so that it may be carried out, clears 
the ground very much. The man who wants to 
know can know, without any doubt. Hundreds 
of young people are facing the question of giving 
their lives to the great, needy, foreign mission 
fields. There, without any question, is the great- 
est need, and there too is the greatest privilege 
of service. And in addition to that are the great 
home mission fields, and the church ministry. In 
our day there is a great call for many sorts of 
workers in addition to the ordained ministry. 

The general plan for all followers of Jesus is 
that they shall go. The general marching orders 

1 Psalm 16: 7. 



The Problem of Guidance i jj 

to all who hear His voice are a plain, imperative 
"Go." The early disciples so understood and 
went. In foreign mission lands there is a spirit 
akin to that of these early disciples. In Korea 
to-day they are going everywhere in the same 
way. Whenever there is a spirit of awakening 
in the Church there is always a spirit of awak- 
ening to this ringing call to go. Whenever the 
Spirit of God gets sway in a man's life, among 
the other marked characteristics, is a new, yearn- 
ing earnestness to take the message of Jesus to 
the far-off peoples who have had no word of it. 

But in addition to the general marching order 
is the particular personal order. The Master 
has made plain His plan for His Church; it is 
to go. He makes plain His plan for each mem- 
ber of His Church where he is to go. The whole 
scheme is mapped out by the Lord of the harvest, 
and each one's place in the scheme, too. And 
while all may go in a very real sense to those 
neediest fields by prayer and money and earnest 
sentiment-making, some are not to go there per- 
sonally, but to stay here. The great thing is to be 
where the Master has planned. 

How shall a man know that plan for himself ? 
He should aim to gather all available informa- 
tion, weigh and balance it carefully, and wait 
quietly upon God, both in prayer and in the spirit 
of his life, with a full, eager willingness to go far 
or stay near, to be wholly in religious service or 
a volunteer with other duties, as the plan may be. 
He that is willing to go shall know. He should 



178 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

inform himself about the great world-fields. 
That is very easily done to-day. The Student 
Volunteer Movement and the Young People's 
Movement have brought the information close 
home in very easy shape. 

He ought to think about his own abilities and 
special gifts. These gifts and talents are gifts 
from God, and so a trust. One should think 
soberly of what he can do, and cannot do, that 
he may know his responsibility, and meet it. 
Some sensible friend or two, sympathetic with 
you and with the needs, can be of real service here, 
to help you get an impartial view, while the 
decision must rest with yourself. The circum- 
stances of one's life must be considered, and the 
home responsibilities. I know a young man who 
burned with the desire to go to a foreign field. 
But it was very plain to him that he should not 
leave home; he was needed there. There was a 
deep twinge of regret as the situation cleared to 
him; but no element of doubt. Clearly it was 
so planned for him. And he has since been used 
graciously in every mission land while yet re- 
maining home. That is the story of very many 
who have discerned clearly the plan, and gladly 
fitted into it. 

All this one should gather up: facts about the 
world-need; about himself, with friends to help 
get the undue personal coloring out; about his 
circumstances; and the strong inward impulse. 
These should be sifted and weighed unhurriedly, 
and balanced, and time spent in quiet prayer 



The Problem of Guidance 179 

alone with God over His word. So a man will 
come to know with the certainty that steadies 
all his coming service. And he will always 
know in time. But he must not be hurried; 
he may decide quickly but he must not decide 
hurriedly. 

"My Sheep Hear My Voice.'" 

There are some snags in these waters to be 
looked out for, and avoided. Some terrible mis- 
takes have been made by those who said they had 
heard the voice of God, and were doing as He had 
bid. I am not speaking now of those who have done 
insane things under such a delusion. But godly, 
well-equipped men, earnest and whole hearted 
in their devotion, have made pitiable mistakes 
that have sadly blighted both life and service. 

Sometimes a failure to obey in some matter, 
a break with God, a getting out of touch, a bit of 
sin not fixed up at once but persisted in, has led 
to the unwise step, and a wrecked career of ser- 
vice. We are made of such inflammable, catchy 
stuff that we must fight shy of the fires of passion 
and of pride, and live very close to God, with a 
constant cleansing from defilement, if we are to go 
straight. 

And sometimes where no such thing comes in 
there is a plain slip in judgment, with sad results. 
The records of service are full of those who have 
been led away from the middle road to side paths 
not meant to be trodden. God is no longer able 
to use them. The switching from the road has 



180 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

meant a switching from service. Paul was con- 
stantly on the watch lest after having been used 
of God he should have to be laid aside as no longer 
serviceable. 1 

Mark keenly that the tempter is a great imi- 
tator. He is a mighty actor, skilful in imper- 
sonating God. He follows God as closely as he 
can. There is a fascination in running through 
the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, and 
noting the imitations of the evil one. There is a 
voice of God, and there is a voice that is not God's 
but sometimes mistaken for His. There is need 
of constant watchful care. Yet one may be sure. 
The Master said, "My sheep hear my voice"; 2 
that is, they recognize it. The actual sheep in 
that land are very keen and quick to recognize 
their own master's voice. That sheep simile is 
immensely helpful here. The sheep live with the 
shepherd. It is by long daily intimacy with him 
that they know him so well. 

So with us. By the intimacy of daily contact 
with God, by the intimacy of knowledge with His 
Book, one may come to recognize unerringly His 
voice, and by the cultivation of a quiet spirit one 
grows keener to know that voice, for it is a voice of 
great, still quietness. There is a Voice of God as 
well as a Book of God. God speaks by the voice 
of the Spirit to a man's inner spirit. He is apt to 
speak in the words of the Book. Sometimes He 
speaks otherwise. And when He does it is al- 
ways in accord with the Book, of course; the 

1 1. Corinthians 9:27. 2 John 10: 27. 



The Problem of Guidance 1 8 1 

voice of God agrees with itself. He never speaks 
contrary to the Book nor to the spirit of it. 

Having asked for guidance and reached your 
decision, never look back and question your 
guidance. If indeed it be clear that you have not 
waited quietly enough, and have not heard dis- 
tinctly, and made a decision unwisely, of course 
it must be changed. But when you have waited 
and listened and not hurried, and come to a de- 
cision, then refuse to question it. Push quietly 
on. There is a teasing, nagging indecision that 
whips back and forth over a matter already dis- 
posed of. It often comes from worn-out nerves. 
Good sound sleep, and plenty of fresh air, and 
plain food thoroughly chewed, would dispel many 
of the distracting, confusing thoughts that come 
racing in like staghounds to bother us. They 
would help us to hold steady mentally, and to 
know the thing to do. Sometimes this indecision 
lies deeper down than a tired body, and is a mental 
trait to be chastened and disciplined. 

A will bended to God's, a spirit of obedience to 
His wishes, the Book kept open, the cultivation 
of the Spirit's friendship, time alone with the Book 
daily, a habit of wide reading of its pages, a quiet, 
unhurried spirit — these simple, great things lead 
to the disciplined judgment and sensitive spirit 
that know what to do and make no slips. 

"Thou sweet, beloved will of God, 
My anchor-ground, my fortress hill, 
My spirit's silent fair abode: 
In thee I hide me and am still. 



1 8 2 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Upon God's will I lay me down 
As child upon its mother's breast; 

No silken couch, nor softest bed 
Could ever give me such sweet rest. 

Thy wonderful grand will, my God, 
With triumph now I make it mine; 

And love shall cry a joyous 'yes' 
To every dear command of thine. 

Thy beautiful sweet will, my God, 
Holds fast in its sublime embrace 

My captive will, a gladsome bird 
Prisoned in such a realm of grace. 

Within this place of certain good 
Love evermore expands her wings; 

Or, nestling in thy perfect choice, 
Abides content with what it brings; 

A sweetest burden, lightest yoke, 
It lifts, it bears my happy soul; 

It giveth wings to this poor heart; 
My freedom is thy grand control." ■ 

1 Madame Guyon. 



THE PROBLEM OF THE 
CHURCH 



Some Wrong Ideas. 

The Tie of Blood and Spirit. 

A Picture of the True Family. 

Fellowship and Service. 

Great Church-names Sign-posts 
of Man's Growth. 

A New Church Unity. 

The True Church Spirit. 



The Problem of the Church 



Some Wrong Ideas. 

" Are you a member of Church ? " I was asked 
by an earnest Christian woman recently. It was 
at a conference of Christian people for speaking 
about Jesus and the great truths of Christian life 
and service. She is a gifted woman, earnest in 
her spirit of devotion and service. "Yes," I re- 
plied, with a bit of wonder at the question, "I 
certainly am; I am a member of the Church in 
which I was born and reared." 

"But," she went on, "how can you be? Are 
there not many things there of which you do not 
approve, and things taught that you do not 
believe?" I reminded her that church member- 
ship was not a matter of approving everything 
that was done, nor yet a matter of believing cer- 
tain things. It is the gathering together of those 
who believe in Jesus Christ, and gather in His 
name for mutual helpfulness, and for a great 
world-service. 

It is because I seem to have met many whose 
thought of the Church has not been clear, and 
who have wavered in their devotion to it, that I 
want to talk a bit here about the Church, and our 
personal relation to it. This is one of the per- 
185 



1 86 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

sonal problems that comes up in the life of very 
many who would climb the highest levels, and 
always ring true. 

There have been a good many common mis- 
takes current in thinking about the Church. It 
is supposed by some that church membership 
necessitates a belief in all the items of her creeds ; 
by others that it is a sort of profession of peculiar 
goodness or sanctity; and by others that it is 
largely for one's own helpfulness and enjoyment. 
The personality of the minister has entered in to a 
very large degree, and very naturally. That must 
always have influence. The Church has some- 
times, in some quarters, been thought of practi- 
cally as an exclusive club to which non-members 
are not welcome without a personal introduction 
by a member in acceptable standing. It has been 
thought of, too, as the doorway into desirable 
social circles, and some very earnest, Bible-loving 
people have thought of it wholly as a place to be 
fed and fired up. 

And let it be frankly said that there has been 
and is much in various quarters to give coloring 
to these various suppositions. Yet the simple 
thought of the purpose of the Church is quite 
different from any of these ideas. It will surely 
help, to get some clear thought of the mission of 
the Church, and of one's true relation to it. 

The Tie of Blood and Spirit. 

The Church is a family, God's family. It is 
common blood that makes a family. The child 



The Problem of the Church 187 

comes into the family through the blood of the 
parents. In quite another sense it can be said 
it is one blood that makes the church family. 
Through the blood of the Head of this family 
there comes the life to each one, and that life it is 
that makes him a member of the family. 

The Church is not an organization formed by 
men for an agreed purpose. It is a society founded 
by the Holy Spirit for a great purpose. Its mem- 
bers belong there only because the Spirit of the 
Founder is in them. Each one into whom the 
Spirit has come is a member of the society be- 
cause of that fact. The Holy Spirit is the bond 
of union that holds the members together. As 
they are drawn closer to Him they are drawn 
closer to each other. 

Membership in a family is by birth. The child 
comes into the family by birth ; he comes into the 
church family by birth too, the higher spirit-birth. 
The child has his father's spirit and in some degree 
his likeness. The member of the church family 
has his Father's spirit, and in some degree His 
likeness. Wherever there is a heart that has 
opened to the gracious Spirit of God there is a 
member of His family. For He quickly enters 
every such heart and His presence is the certifi- 
cate of membership in His family, the Church. 

The members of this family meet with the 
Head of the family, of course. Getting together 
is a family trait. The Spirit in each draws them 
together. They meet out of love for their Father. 
They love to tell Him of their love for Him, and 



1 8 8 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

to express their feelings of regard. The common 
word for this is worship. They meet to read 
their Father's letters, and to talk about Him and 
His plans and wishes. Such meetings naturally 
bring a glow of warmth to the heart, clearer 
thought of His wishes to the mind, and a keener 
edge to the desire to please Him. They meet, too, 
to plan how best to win the other children of the 
Father who have strayed away from the home 
circle, and lost many of the old family traits. The 
Father's letters constantly talk about going out 
for the others, and going to those farthest away 
and telling them of His yearning love for them. 

For this church family is a sort of reunited 
family. The old original family was badly 
broken up and scattered. The Father sent down 
His Son to get them back and together again. It 
was a great, difficult task. He lost His life on the 
errand, but He succeeded in the task. Some 
came, and more, and many more. But the 
Father's heart is very hungry for the rest. He is 
ever calling them back. His Spirit in a man is 
ever urging that man to get the rest back, too, into 
the inner circle again. 

As the members of the reunited family are 
scattered in all parts of the world, these meet- 
ings are held in different places. For convenience 
and mutual helpfulness, different branches of the 
family have been organized. Men have been 
drawn together by national ties, language ties, 
neighborhood ties, and by ties of friendship. 
Personal temperament has been a great tie. 



The Problem of the Church 189 

Some prefer to give full expression to their feel- 
ings ; others find a f reeness of expression in spirit 
through quiet meetings. 

By agreement and by growth the great branches 
have been built up with certain statements of 
belief, and certain forms of management and of 
worship. All this has played an important part 
and still does. But these varying outer forms 
are incidental. They are a convenience for the 
mutual working together of men in a common 
plan of work. The vital bond of all is the Holy 
Spirit's presence. He is the great dominant 
factor, and the one element of unity in the whole, 
and of continuity through all time. 

A Picture 0} the True Family. 

Through the long years this church family has 
grown very large, and become very widely scat- 
tered over the earth. Its members are different 
in many ways. They speak many languages. 
Some are rich and some poor, some educated 
and some ignorant, with all degrees between. 
And sometimes differences of opinion have oc- 
curred. That is not surprising, considering the 
great differences of other sorts. And some- 
times, it must be confessed, bad disputes have 
broken out. The very success attending the 
effort to bring in all others has led indirectly to 
things of this sort. For these men are not all 
perfect in love, nor in mental discipline, nor in 
self-control. 

And so there are many branches of the church 



190 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

family, with their gatherings conducted in many 
different ways. There are some members of the 
great church family, members through the birth- 
mark of the Spirit's presence in their hearts, who 
do not attend any of these gatherings. That is 
always unfortunate, for they cannot help so well 
in carrying out the Father's plan for the world, 
and they miss the fellowship and help, and are 
missed too. And then there are quite a good 
many who do not have that birth-mark who have 
come into the membership of these branches. 
But wherever there is a man in whom the Spirit 
is he will be drawn to meet the others with that 
same Spirit. The Spirit of God in a man draws 
him into contact with the other members of the 
family. 

Now a family is peculiar in this: here are 
gathered into one, persons of very marked differ- 
ences. There are extreme differences of age, of 
maturity, of knowledge, of wisdom, of health and 
strength, and even of temperament in children 
of the same parents. The true family is both a 
school and a hospital; a place of growth, of the 
disciplining of the powers, and- of sweetest friend- 
ships ; with the zest and stimulus of constant con- 
tact, and all pervaded with the atmosphere of 
unselfish love. 

And this is the true conception of the Church, 
especially of the particular group that is bound 
together in one place of gathering, by ties of 
agreement, as well as by the fundamental tie of 
the Holy Spirit's presence in each. A man does 



The Problem of the Church 191 

not enter here because he understands the doc- 
trines and creed of the Church, but that he may 
understand. He does not come in because he is 
good, but to become good and better; not be- 
cause he is in sound health spiritually, but to be 
helped into spiritual vigor. 

The one essential thing is that he has admitted 
Jesus into his life as Saviour and Master. He 
does not attend the meetings simply to get, but 
to give too. His presence in an earnest, devout 
spirit is a great gift to the gathering. He should 
not go to get his torch lighted, but to take a lit 
torch and let it touch other lit torches, that so 
there may be better light and warmth. He ought 
to carry a live coal in so that others may be 
warmed, though he is not conscious of that. 

The preaching may not always be to his liking, 
nor the music ; and some people may not be as 
agreeable as they might be; but these things 
should be thought of as incidentals to be prayed 
over or, may be, forgotten. They are important. 
We cannot help being affected by them. But we 
should be careful not to let our possible dislike or 
dissatisfaction affect our conduct or speech. A 
man should aim to keep his boat in the current, 
and not let it be swept to one side by little eddies, 
and maybe get stuck in the mud. 

The earnest desire to meet with the other mem- 
bers of the great church family, even though per- 
sonally unknown, to worship the Father, and lis- 
ten for a message either outer or inner, and help 
through gift towards the great world-service of the 



192 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Church, will always find a blessing coming into 
the heart, and a bit of uplift into the life. A 
man may always find in the church service what 
he needs. 

I have been in all sorts of Churches and church 
services, in many parts of the world, and have 
found that it is always possible to get a fresh 
touch with God. Even amid possible distrac- 
tions of a strange language, or something uncon- 
genial, there can come the deep, quiet glow into 
the heart that tells of the Spirit's touch. God 
meets with the man who goes to the place of 
worship to be met. There is a blessing waiting 
for each of us in the gathering together in the 
church service, and we may get it if we will. 

Fellowship and Service. 

Man was made for fellowship and service. He 
was made male and female for mutual help in the 
maturing of his life, and so greater efficiency in 
service. Here in the original plan for man lies 
the plan of the Church. It is a divine institution 
for the mutual maturing of the fife of its members, 
and for a great service — bearing witness to Jesus 
Christ before all men. Its birthday was that 
marvellous day in Jerusalem when the crucified 
and enthroned Jesus sent down the Holy Spirit 
upon His waiting disciples. Its beginnings were 
wholly Jewish, at the Jewish capital, with Jewish 
members, and in a Jewish atmosphere. 

Its mission was a striking resemblance to that 
of the old Hebrew nation. That nation's great 



The Problem of the Church 193 

mission was to preserve the revelation it had re- 
ceived of the true God, and to give it to all the 
world. The Hebrews were God's preachers to 
the world of Himself. The Church's mission is 
to tell all the world of Jesus Christ, His life and 
death and new life beyond death. The Church 
is Jesus Christ's preacher to all nations. 

The principle of organization of the two is 
radically different. In the nation there was a 
birthright membership, in the Church a member- 
ship by personal choice; there others could come 
in by choosing to, and fulfilling the requirements ; 
here all come in by choice. In the nation the 
magnet was Jehovah, and His worship. In the 
Church the magnet is Jesus Christ, and His sacrifice 
of love. The Church is the lineal descendant 
of the Hebrew nation. The nation failed at the 
greatest crisis of its history, the coming of its 
King — failed through rejecting Him. The high- 
est revelation entrusted to it was refused. The 
Church was brought to its birth that that re- 
jected King, accepted as Saviour, might be taken 
to all men. 

There are a good many family traits of the 
nation in its descendant. That nation was not 
alway true to its mission. Its leaders were fre- 
quently weak and false. It had to be severely 
chastened. Its light shone very dimly and un- 
steadily at times. Yet up to the time of the great 
crisis its mission had been largely fulfilled; 
everywhere in the civilized world was a knowl- 
edge of the true God, and a people worshipping 
13 



1 94 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Him,* in the midst of idolatry. Always in its 
darkest days and saddest plight the true light 
was kept shining clear and bright by a faithful 
company. There was the nation within the na- 
tion ; the inner group true to the national mission 
while the nation itself was losing sight of its high 
ideal. 

The Church has not always been true to its 
mission. Yet always there have been those who 
have kept the fires alive, though sometimes the 
live coals seemed very few. But always there 
has been a vitality in the Church, a peculiar 
quality of real life that has thrown off the bad, 
broken through the false-work, risen up out of 
the dead elements, and swung it true to its great 
mission. They were all sons of the Church who 
led in the great protesting movement which was 
as a second birth to it, and to the whole world's 
life. 

The counter Reformation within the mother 
Church was another evidence of its great vitality. 
The more recent movements among young men, 
and young women, and students, and for a re- 
newed missionary campaigning by students and 
young people and laymen, have all grown up 
within the circle of its membership; they have 
drawn their strength from its heart; they are 
simply new evidences of its vast fertility and 
resource, equal to any emergency. 

It is intensely interesting to note that all the 
creative factors that enter into our present com- 
plex, intense civilization found the** birth within 



The Problem of the Church 195 

the Church. The mental awakening of the 
world's life so marked and marvellous in every 
sphere of life in our day has dated practically 
from the great Reformation movement. There 
has been no such mental activity in the nations 
outside the sphere of the Church's influence. 
, It has been most apparent where the Church's 
influence has been greatest. The whole modern 
system of education found a birthplace in its vital- 
ity, and is distinctively its child. Here in America 
peculiarly, in the beginning, the Church built the 
colleges. 

The spirit of robust, aggressive vigor so domi- 
nant to-day in all the world was breathed into life 
by the lif e of the Church. Church history is the 
backbone of all history. Other lines break and 
recede. The Church supplies the one continuous 
warp into which is woven all the rest. The whole 
network of benevolent institutions to help the 
distressed, the hospitals and the asylums of all 
sorts for caring for the physically and mentally 
needy, grew up out of its warm heart. 

Great Church-names Sign- posts of Man's Growth. 
The fact that there are great divisions of the 
Church has been the subject of much criticism. 
It is not uncommon to hear the Church spoken of 
as being "all split up." But these great divi- 
sions have, in the main, come about in a very 
natural way. They have been a natural develop- 
ment historically of man's progress in liberty, 
and in the development of his mental powers. 



196 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

They are a great expression of his strength of 
thought, as well as of his individual temperament, 
brought into conflict with the autocratic principle 
of government in both Church and State from 
which men have so largely broken away. 

The first great division was by a geographi- 
cal line into east and west, Greek and Roman. 
Underneath that line was a radical difference of 
temperament between the peoples of the West 
centering at Rome, and those of the East center- 
ing about Constantinople. They had been bound 
into one empire through the power of the sword. 
Now they are free to give expression to their 
individuality. It has been commonly said that 
that division came about through the dispute 
over two little Latin words in the creed. But 
that only revealed the different modes of thought 
of peoples diverse in temperament, and now free 
to give expression to their thoughts. 

The next division, the great Protestant move- 
ment, was an evidence of the new life, both men- 
tal and spiritual, of the peoples of Europe. The 
whole body of Protestant churches to-day tells 
out the vigor and vitality both of man's life and 
of the Church. It spells out large the greatest 
movement of man towards a new intellectual life. 
The race was catching fire afresh. It was having 
a new birth. 

The varying names within the Protestant 
Church grew up naturally in different nations. 
In Germany the personality of the great leader 
in their midst gave the name Lutheran. Under 



The Problem of the Church 197 

the leadership of that very different personality, 
Calvin, the churches in the Rhine countries from 
Holland to Switzerland used the name Reformed. 
In Scotland, always marked peculiarly for its 
independence and individuality, the name Pres- 
byterian grew up, indicating a form of govern- 
ment radically different from that of the mother 
Church from which they had broken away. In 
England the Reformation movement took on 
national proportions, the King leading in the 
break, and so a national name was used, the 
Church of England. 

The Methodist Church was a later movement. 
It is a child of the Church of England, born in its 
heart. It grew up out of the great awakening 
among the common people of England under the 
leadership of John Wesley. Its name is a con- 
stant reminder of the power of the Church to 
reach out to the masses, and, too, of the marvel- 
lous power inherent in man to develop new life. 
The stream of life always cuts new channels. 

Others have grown up through adherence to 
some truth or principle that was not being recog- 
nized and emphasized as some men felt that it 
should be. So the great Baptist Church came into 
being and was peculiarly strengthened by the vari- 
ous persecutions endured. Many of the smaller 
church bodies are evidence that the unity of the 
Church is greater than the differences; for they 
are made of remnants who have refused to come 
into a union being effected by the larger number. 
Their existence reveals the fact that the unity of 



198 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

the Church has been dominant, though not all- 
inclusive. 

The last hundred years and more have wit- 
nessed an unparalleled spreading out of the race 
over the whole earth, subduing, developing, and 
organizing, even as the command was given in 
Eden. The pouring of the hordes of northern 
barbarians into southern Europe has been spoken 
of as one of the greatest movements of the race. 
But it is clear overshadowed, both in the numbers 
and in the vast changes involved, by the present- 
day emigration movements. And as the people 
have gone they have carried with them the church 
forms and names to which they were accus- 
tomed in the home land. So it comes to pass 
that on American soil can be found about every 
form of church worship, and management, and 
name. These differences viewed thus histori- 
cally do not reveal the weakness of the Church 
but its strength. They mark a certain stage 
in its progress. They tell the story of 
man's vigorous life, and of his devotion to the 
Church. 

The New Church Unity. 

And now there is a new movement in church 
life developing rapidly; a new stage is being en- 
tered upon. The immense strides which man 
has recently made and is making in obeying the 
divine command to subdue the earth and develop 
it, are rapidly working out a new family spirit 
among all the men of all the earth. The unity 



The Problem of the Church 199 

of the race is revealing itself afresh. And this 
is finding expression in the lif e of the Church. 

There has been growing up in the last half- 
century a remarkable spirit of unity. And now 
there is a marked and remarkable stretching of 
eager hands across the dividing lines towards such 
a unity as Christ prayed for so fervently as He 
was going away. It can be thoughtfully said 
that there is to-day a practical unity in the Church 
deeper and keener, warmer and more sympathetic, 
than when it bore only one name. 

And this is said with full alertness to the differ- 
ences. But the differences are always less than 
the likenesses; always less than the one domi- 
nant spirit beneath varying names and forms 
and customs. And in our day the dividing lines 
are looking towards a point of meeting. These 
are not straight lines, else they would never meet. 
They are angled lines, slanting lines, of peoples 
coming up from different parts of the earth, and 
they are drawing towards a meeting-point. 

We Americans are quite in the habit of think- 
ing of ourselves as the great world-leaders, in 
aggressiveness and enterprise at least. But our 
spirit-brothers in Japan and Korea have been 
ahead of us in their attempt to wipe off the slate 
the dividing church Lines they got from us. And 
our blood-brothers in Britain are clear ahead 
here. In Scotland, a land and people as much 
marked for independence of thought and action 
as ever the old Greeks were, the coming to- 
gether of churches within recent years has been 



200 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

most remarkable. Our Canadian neighbors have 
joined their Methodist bodies into one, and 
are now at the still greater task of uniting 
bodies as different in both doctrine and manage- 
ment as Methodist and Presbyterian and Congre- 
gational. 

In our own country the United Presbyterian 
Church in its name tells of a coming together. 
And movements are in various stages of progress 
for union on a much wider scale. Blood-brothers 
of our North and South who differed intensely 
and sacrificially have come together materially 
and commercially, fraternally and socially, and 
have been reaching hands across the line in church 
life to get together again there. Never since 
apostolic days has there been so much evidence 
of the oneness of the Church. 

And yet beneath all the movements towards 
organic union is a spirit of unity far greater than 
can ever find expression through mere oneness 
of organization. There has grown up a practical 
unity in service on the mission field to a large ex- 
tent, and ever increasing. And at home the 
practical union of missionary efforts by students, 
by church boards, and now in this great new 
laymen's movement, is most inspiring. The 
Church is one Church in essential spirit, and is 
in increasing measure becoming one Church in 
practical service. 

Serious mistakes have been made and very 
serious differences have arisen. These but tell 
the intensity of feeling regarding matters they 



The Problem of the Church 201 

love of strong men who are not perfect either in 
love, or in knowledge, or in self control. 

One group of men has made a statement of 
what they believed. Their followers have re- 
quired that all after-comers into their circle shall 
assent to that statement. Another group in a 
later generation, under wholly different conditions, 
with new light, and a new way of expressing 
its thoughts, has not liked that statement but 
preferred to make its own. And so there has 
been friction. 

Sometimes earnest men dwelling in the valleys 
have not been able to look over the hills for the 
comprehensive view which sees things in true 
relation to each other. But these very differ- 
ences, with the factional heat involved, have 
but spelled out the vigorous vitality of men in 
robust life. The crowd has looked too much at 
the differences. But then, crowds usually do 
that. As a rule the crowd doesn't think. Men 
differ strongly only about the things they love. 
The mountain peak of strong life and deep de- 
votion and essential unity of spirit looms high 
over all differences. We should keep our eyes 
more upon its noble form. 

The True Church Spirit. 

In a very large social gathering in London 
some years ago, two gentlemen were speaking 
together of church matters. One of them criti- 
cised the church differences, and consequently, 
as he thought, the weakness of the Church. His 



202 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

friend asserted that these differences were largely 
on the surface and incidental; that underneath, 
at heart, there was a great unity among church 
people on the great essentials of the faith. The 
critic politely questioned the accuracy of his 
friend's remark. 

At once the churchman called attention to the 
character of the large company gathered. It 
was representative of many different churches 
and of many walks of life. He said: "At my 
request these people will all bow and reverently 
repeat the Lord's Prayer as a confession of their 
common faith." And, securing the attention of 
all gathered, he explained the little pleasant dis- 
pute that had arisen with his friend, and made the 
request. 

Instantly a soft hush fell over the lively com- 
pany, and with bowed heads, and in a deep, low 
tone, which suggested a great wealth of sup- 
pressed feeling, they repeated reverently the 
Lord's Prayer. On no other one subject could 
there have been found such oneness of thought 
and such a depth of reverence. The subject of 
loyalty to their sovereign would have revealed as 
great oneness, but not the underneath depth of 
reverent feeling called out by loyalty to the higher 
Sovereign. 

The great mission of the Church to remember 
the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, and to tell 
all the world earnestly and practically and simply 
of Him, is being fulfilled to-day on a larger 
scale than ever before, and in as devoted a 



The Problem of the Church 203 

spirit as marked the early band of Jerusalem 
disciples. 

Every true follower of Jesus Christ should be 
in the fellowship of the Church. He belongs 
there by birth, his new spirit-birth. The choice 
of the particular branch where his allegiance 
shall be given will be affected by family connection 
and tradition, or friendships, or convenience of 
location, or the receiving of some special spiritual 
blessing, or other such consideration. Thought- 
ful prayer will lead any one in doubt to very 
definite guidance in his decision. 

Where he is led to go he should go heartily. 
That place becomes holy ground to him. The 
shoes of his common round of duties, and of cares, 
will be put off as he enters its doors. Here he 
will meet the Father, and worship Him, and 
receive blessing and help from Him direct. 
Here he will, with his brothers, remember the 
dying love of Jesus in the simple memorial meal of 
bread and wine. Here will be the fellowship of 
kindred spirits through which he will help, and be 
helped. 

Through fellowship here, too, he shall come to 
understand better the love of Christ; for no one 
ever fully takes in that great love; it takes all of 
us together to take hold of that, and realize its 
depth and strength and tenderness. And here 
he can best join with his brothers in the great 
world-service intrusted to the Church of telling 
all the race about Jesus. 



THE PROBLEM OF QUES- 
TIONED THINGS 



Glimpses of Real Life. 

Questions that are Not Questions. 

The Sabbath Question. 

Giving Comfort to the Enemy. 

Paul's Advice. 

Not to Judge but to Save. 

The Law of Love. 



The Problem of Questioned 
Things 



Glimpses oj Real Life. 

A friend took me to luncheon one day. He is 
a leading member of his church, and prominent 
in various forms of Christian activity. We ate 
at a very finely appointed club house. As we 
were looking over the menu card and deciding 
upon the items of luncheon, my friend said, in 
the same tone as when asking about meats, "Will 
you have some beer?" I said quietly, "No, I 
believe not," not supposing that he was speaking 
seriously. But as I glanced over at him he 
seemed as though he actually supposed I might 
drink that beverage. For a long time I was in 
doubt as to whether my friend was serious in his 
question, but, chancing to meet him in a hotel, in 
another city, dining alone, I knew through my 
eyes that he had not been indulging in humor in 
his question. 

At another time a young man who was a leader 
in an organization for aggressive Christian work 
offered me tickets to a certain performance at 
the popular theatre of the city, commenting 
favorably on the merits of the performance. In 
207 



208 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

response to a question, he said he had found it 
enjoyable to go sometimes. 

I remember vividly the scene one Sabbath 
night in a large hall in a city in Germany. A 
very large audience was assembled, including 
several clergymen sitting upon the platform. It 
was a union meeting of the churches of the city. 
Beer was being served throughout the service. 
And I noted the dexterity with which the waiters 
could handle a half-dozen large full mugs, make 
change, and glide quietly about, without disturb- 
ing the service by noise. I remember, too, that 
when one of the speakers gave expression to a 
pleasing sentiment the young element present 
began to applaud by hand -clapping, but were in- 
stantly checked by a storm of hisses, that ran like 
a sharp breeze over the hall. Such desecration 
of the Sabbath day clearly was not permissible. 

One Sabbath morning I was startled, on en- 
tering the church where I was to speak, to notice 
in the corner of each pew a spittoon, and then one 
in the pulpit. These articles were of white china, 
and so in sharp contrast with the surroundings 
of walnut and brown furnishings. The color of 
that which had evidently gone into the spittoon 
was in such keeping with the general color-scheme 
of the church as to make quite clear the usage 
that required them. 

One of the leading speakers at a Christian 
workers' convention was inquiring about what 
train he could get after the service Sabbath 
night. He was a very busy man, lived a full 



Problem of Questioned Things 209 

night's ride away, and was eager to be at his desk 
Monday morning. Another leader present in 
the group remarked to me afterwards that he 
would not think of doing such a thing as taking 
a train on Sabbath night. Yet I knew that he 
was in the habit of using bottled beer on the score 
of his health. 

A large party of church people were on a trip 
to a religious gathering. It was a long trip, in- 
volving a Sabbath day on the way. The special- 
train schedule was arranged so as to stop over 
for that day, and then leave at a few minutes past 
midnight of the Sabbath day. In a chance ex- 
change of remarks with an engineer who did not 
know me, he said, with a leering wink of the eye : 
" These church folks don't travel on Sunday, you 
know." His tone and manner suggested that 
he did not think much of the sort of technical 
Sabbath observance that required him and his 
crew to use part of their Sabbath day in 
working. 

A Southern clergyman visiting his brother in 
the North was to attend a certain church service 
on the Sabbath day. It was some distance away, 
too far for him to walk; but he did not think it 
right to use the street cars on that day, and so 
requested his brother to engage a carriage for his 
use. The brother did so. Later the brother 
remarked to me that if he were seen on the street 
cars on the Sabbath, his friends would know that 
he was going to the mission he attended every 
Sabbath; if they saw him in a carriage driving 
14 



21 o Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

they would likely suppose, he said, that he was 
out for a pleasure jaunt. 

A young woman, member of a leading church 
in her home city, teacher in the Sabbath School, 
and faithful in attendance at the Young People's 
Meetings, was talking with a friend of mine about 
card-playing and dancing. She said she thought 
it was not right for a true Christian to engage in 
these things, but when she was out in social 
gatherings, where they were indulged, she would 
join through dislike of being thought peculiar. 

Questions that are Not Questions. 

These incidents suggest at once the principal 
things that are being regarded to-day as ques- 
tionable things. They suggest, too, the differ- 
ences of opinion held regarding them by Chris- 
tian people. Wherever Christian circles and 
worldly circles touch and overlap and interlace 
these things are being discussed. It is very strik- 
ing that everywhere they* are called questionable. 
Though if a thing of this sort be questionable, 
surely it is not questionable. If some one seriously 
raises a question about some such matter of con- 
duct, there is surely no question about that item 
for the man who would touch the highest levels, 
and always ring true. 

Just such questions of propriety and of con- 
science have always been up for discussion. Ever 
since Jesus was on earth men have divided them- 
selves into two great groups around Him. For 
those who have stayed close to Him that line of 



Problem of Questioned Things 211 

division is usually clear, and sharp, and easily- 
seen. For those who travel closer to the line 
itself, and the people on the other side, it has 
seemed to be a vague, indistinct line, not easily 
seen. The folks on the other side of it seem to 
be raising a good bit of dust and those near by 
are bothered in their seeing. 

Yet, too, let it be said that for many an earnest 
Christian who would live very close to the Master 
there arise just such questions of conduct and of 
conscience that seem very difficult to decide. 

The settlement of them is a matter of stand- 
point. A simple statement of the Christian 
standpoint helps much to clear away the haze 
and fog. It has been said in a former talk that 
the Church is Jesus Christ's preacher to the world. 
What is true of the Church is true of its members. 
Each one by his life is Jesus Christ's preacher to 
his world. Jesus is counting on us. We are the 
ones upon whom His plan for the world depends, 
and the only ones. The world knows Jesus 
through His followers. It knows Him only as it 
knows His followers. 

It is to be feared that some of us are preaching 
a rather scrappy Gospel, or a very much hidden 
Gospel. But whatever each follower of His is 
in his life, that is the impression of Jesus Christ 
which his circle gets so far as he is concerned. 
Whatever gives a wrong or weak or obscure im- 
pression of Jesus, and of the life He calls us to, 
clearly belongs outside the Chrisian man's life. 
Whatever hides Him away should be put out. 



2 1 2 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

We are judged by our attitude towards these 
questioned things. That outside congregation 
does not know much about creeds. It doesn't 
know much about Jesus Christ. It does lay 
great stress upon conduct, upon what a man 
does. It judges his belief by what he does, the 
way he lives. Could there be a keener way ? or 
one more philosophical? For a man literally 
believes only so much as he actually makes over 
into life. These questioned things are familiar 
to these folks. They are not questioned out in 
their world, but freely indulged. They seem to 
think a Jesus-man should be different from them- 
selves, in the sense of being better, being guided 
and held under the strong thumb of a better and 
higher motive. So that our Christian profession 
is largely judged by our attitude towards such 
matters. 

Years ago, before the time of railroad consoli- 
dation had set in, a certain bit of railroad whose 
main line was about two hundred miles long, was 
under the management of a Christian man. He 
was as much noted in church circles for his earn- 
est, faithful spirit, as he was in railroad circles for 
his ability as a manager. The road was widely 
known for three things: its good service, its good 
dividends, and the fact that there were no Sunday 
trains. An annual report had just been issued, 
and the directors had voted the usual good-sized 
dividend. Referring to it, another railroad man- 
ager, in conversation with a group of business 
men, remarked, "Well, those blank Christians 
know how to run a railroad." The manager of 



Problem of Questioned Things 2 1 3 

that railroad was preaching Christ to all the world 
by his simple Sabbath observance rule. 

The Sabbath Question. 



The question of Sunday travel, both on trains 
and on street cars, has been one of the questioned 
things, but in many circles seems to be passing 
outside the line of question. Some who would 
not think of travelling on a train on the Sabbath 
use the street cars freely on that day, though the 
difference is difficult to see, except in the matter 
of distance and time involved. Some who do not 
commonly travel on Sunday trains will yet take a 
train Sabbath night in order to have a full day 
for business at the journey's end. 

In the thick of city life, with its congested pop- 
ulation, the long distances involved, the home 
now out a bit may be, and the church still down 
where it used to be, with people of limited means 
getting accommodations where they best can, 
and also, be it said, with the growing disregard 
for the hallowed things — in the city it is very dif- 
ficult to get along without using the street cars. 
The man trying to help in church services and 
at missions seems practically compelled to their 
use. Yet I know a family of limited means, liv- 
ing in a large city, who, on removing the home 
from one part of the city to another distant part, 
changed their church membership, breaking old 
ties in doing so, simply to avoid the Sunday travel. 

I know a Christian man whose service for many 
years has called him to travel much over the 
country. I have heard him say that in twenty 



2 1 4 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

years of such travel he has never taken a Sunday 
train, except once in the beginning of his travel, 
when he missed a connection late on Saturday 
within a short distance of the place of appoint- 
ment for the next day. Yet, he said, very delib- 
erately, as though quite clear after much think- 
ing, that the work of that day led him to question 
very seriously the propriety of his action. And 
he felt that his influence for the highest standard 
of the Christian life had been lessened in that 
place, which was a boom town where Christian 
standards were loosely held. 

He went on to say that he had travelled on the 
Sabbath a few other times in cases of emergency, 
once a death call, andaf ew times taking a train late 
Sabbath night to reach home on account of serious 
illness there. This man's matured conviction 
is that practically it is better to avoid such travel 
entirely except in distinct emergencies. And I 
have grown to have great and increasing respect 
for his judgment. His habit regarding street- 
car use on that day is to avoid using them. In 
making appointments he has this in mind. Yet 
when he feels led to an appointment necessitating 
a longer distance than he thinks it wise to walk 
he does not hesitate to use them. 

The consideration regarding Sunday travel 
is wholly a practical one. It is not that such 
travel is breaking the Sabbath day necessarily. 
Even the Jews, the greatest sticklers for Sabbath 
observance on technical grounds, did travel on the 
Sabbath ; travelled much less, but did travel, as the 
phrase "a Sabbath day's journey" indicates. But 



Problem of Questioned Things 215 

Sunday travel is not a necessity, though in our 
intense civilization it has come to be so regarded. 

The chief objection to it is that thereby men 
are deprived of their day of rest. That is quite 
enough of an objection in itself to decide an ear- 
nest man. Every man has a right to the rest-day. 
In being so deprived he distinctly suffers both 
bodily and spiritually. The tone of his life, and 
of his home, is lowered. But there is a second 
great objection. A disregard of the Sabbath day 
is apt not only to indicate a disregard for other 
hallowed things, but to breed such a disregard. 
The Sabbath is a sort of safeguard. Once it is 
broken through, other breaks are apt to come in a 
man's regard for holy things. 

It may seem very radical to say it, yet I am 
more and more compelled to believe it soberly 
true that the common Sunday travel and traffic, 
both mail and freight, are not a necessity, from 
any standpoint, with the usual saving clause 
about exceptions and emergencies. In our in- 
tense, aggressive civilization it seems that it must 
be a necessity. Yet it is not. It could all be 
stopped, and our national life be both stronger 
and sweeter. The intense drive of the time, 
the continual railroad accidents, the breakdowns 
from overwork, all spell out in biggest capital 
letters the deep philosophy of needed rest that 
underlies the old Hebrew commandment. 

Giving Comfort to the Enemy. 

Regarding the theatre, it can be said that with- 
out doubt there are some performances, such as 



2i 6 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

historical plays and others, that are thoroughly 
enjoyable, and that would not be otherwise than 
helpful. But clearly these are the exception. 
The theatre as an institution is not good; more, 
it is bad. The tone of its performances has 
been steadily lowering to cater to the sensual 
appetites, the morbid desire for the sensational. 
Its representation of life, as a rule, is not true, nor 
good, nor well balanced. Then it can be added 
that the worst features of sinful lif e in the city are 
constantly fostered and intensified by the theatre. 

A man might choose only the exceptional, fine 
play, and refuse all others. But many of those 
in his circle who are under the influence of his 
conduct make no such discrimination. They 
are younger, it may be, with their character and 
convictions just in process of being formed. The 
fact that this man goes influences their going. 
The chances are all in favor of their choosing the 
popular play of the hour, or the one that happens 
to strike the fancy. The chances are still more 
in favor of their being hurt in their moral lives, 
not to go higher and say Christian lives. 

Cards have long been gamblers' favorite tools. 
It may not be that the playing of any of the 
numerous card games has necessarily any in- 
fluence upon one's thought of gambling. But 
there does seem practically to be a subtle, sure 
connection between the two. There is an itch 
about cards; a contagious itch. The chance of 
winning something for nothing must be added 
to give zest to the playing. And the step from a 
trifling something to something of real value, 



Problem of Questioned Things 217 

and then of great value, seems to be a very short 
one. And the highly colored glamour of high 
society casts a spell over all. Gambling itself is 
not questionable. It is only bad. It is wrong 
in principle, of course; never right. It would 
seem the only wise course to leave gamblers' 
favorite tools to themselves. 

The word dancing seems to cover a great variety 
of physical exercise under greatly different con- 
ditions. David danced before the Lord to ex- 
press his joy at the return of the Ark. The old 
Scottish dances were used as fine means of de- 
velopment, but were strictly guarded, men with 
men, and women with women, and never other- 
wise. What is called the modern dance seems 
to have radically altered these old regulations. 

Many of the common usages of dancing to-day 
put it quite outside the line for the modest, 
thoughtful people. Many dancing institutions 
and centres join hands with the theatres in fos- 
tering the worst impurity lurking in city life. 

But what about private dancing in one's own 
home with a chosen circle? Well, the fact that 
there is a question-mark over the whole custom 
would seem to answer that question. What is 
being questioned in morals would far better be 
left alone. And with this goes the kindred fact 
that people do not discriminate keenly. 

PauVs Advice. 

Paul set down a great rule about the appetites. 
There were many things which he might justify 
himself in doing, but he said he would not be 




2 1 8 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

brought under the power of anything. What- 
ever habit brings me under its power, and so 
lessens my own power, is a bad habit to me. The 
habit of good, such as prayer, or doing kindness, 
in bringing me under its power is also increasing 
my own power of self-mastery. What injures 
my body is wrong for me. 

If the use of tobacco or alcoholic drink in any 
shape affects the action of the heart, or lessens 
my staying powers, or unsteadies my nerves, this 
clearly to me is wrong. And the best physicians, 
backed abundantly by science, and by constant 
illustrations from life, have spoken very posi- 
tively here. In the light of what specialists say 
it would seem that any indulgence is bad. Sooner 
or later its effect will be felt in the body and so 
in the life. 

ith the conditions of life prevalent to-day 
there is no question at all regarding strong drink 
for the man who would be Jesus Christ's true 
preacher to men. Total abstinence is the only 
safe rule for a sound body, a clear brain, a strong 
will, and for the influence upon the great crowd 
of our fellows on a road very slippery and slant- 
ing. 

The Church of Corinth fairly bristled with 
questions about matters of conduct. They gave 
the earnest people there great concern. They 
concerned Paul very greatly, for these people 
were his spiritual children, whom he had brought 
into new life through hard travail. These people 
write to Paul for advice and help in the per- 
plexity The first nine chapters of his first 



Problem of Questioned Things 219 

epistle to the Corinthians are largely devoted to 
these matters. Some of the questions raised 
were about abuses concerning which there was 
very explicit command from God. Regarding 
other matters there was no such command, and 
so Paul is advising them as in his judgment is 
best. And he feels that he is being guided in his 
advice by the Spirit of God. 

He says that if doing something causes his 
brother to stumble he will not do that thing while 
the world stands. The passion of service burned 
that into his heart. The love for the Master who 
had sent him to serve was yet greater. The eager 
longing to win men up to the highest life over- 
ruled all his own tastes and preferences. 

His controlling principle in settling all such 
questions was love; a tender, intensely practical 
love for all men. Love is the great test of the 
Christian life. Knowledge purTeth up; we all 
know that, and are constantly reminded of it. 
Love buildeth up. We need more of that. 

Paul says, " All things are lawful forme, but all 
things are not expedient." It is not wrong to do 
certain things, but it is not best. It is not a 
question of right and wrong here. That test 
belongs lower down. Up here it is a matter of 
doing only what is best, and rigidly leaving the 
rest. Some of these questioned things are not 
necessarily wrong, but they clearly are not best. 
And if we judge a thing to be wrong then it is 
wrong for us, for we are doing the thing we think 
to be wrong. The hurt to the character is as 
great as though it were wrong. 



220 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

If the inner Voice has said to me not to do a 
certain thing, and I do, I break off the intimacy 
of contact with the One who is wooing me into 
the inner intimacies of His friendship. I become 
less sensitive to His voice. The next time I will 
not hear so easily what He is saying. It does 
not affect my salvation, of course. But then, 
who would use the friendship of Jesus as a con- 
venience or as insurance 1 

If witnessing a play tends to make me get used 
to sin, and so think lightly of it, or to make im- 
purity less repugnant to me, or to loosen to any 
degree my hold upon the highest ideals of life, 
clearly to me it is not good, and so it is positively 
bad. 

There is with many a fear of being thought 
peculiar. Yet one of the fine, distinguishing 
marks of Christ's followers is that they are a 
peculiar people. That does not mean peculiar 
in an offensive sense, in criticising all who differ 
with us, nor in setting up standards for others; 
not peculiar in oddity of habit or expression of 
opinion; but peculiar in the purity of the life, 
the lovableness of the spirit, the sweet charity 
of forbearance and thoughtfulness of others, in 
modesty of bearing, and in the earnest willing- 
ness to help and serve. 

But these questions can never be settled satis- 
factorily by a negative policy. It will not do 
merely to cut things off from without. They 
must be pushed off front within. Jesus said 
that when the unclean spirit is cast out of a man 
he comes back, and if the man is empty within 



Problem of Questioned Things 221 

the outcast spirit secures the co-operation of other 
spirits and re-enters the empty house, and now 
holds the man more strongly under his sway 
than ever. If on returning, he had found in his 
old place the gracious, mighty spirit of God in 
possession, he would quietly have slunk away to 
other haunts. 

A man needs a great, absorbing passion to fill 
and grip and control his being and life. There 
is the one great passion, that which absorbed 
Jesus — love. That reaches eagerly up to Him- 
self ; it reaches quickly within to remove what He 
doesn't like; it reaches warmly and earnestly 
out to tell others of Him. This love — Jesus 
Himself enthroned within — fills one so satisfiedly 
that things not congenial are crowded out. It 
lifts one up to such a level that small things are 
seen in their smallness and so their hold loosens. 
It drives one with such intensity out into service 
for men that whatever hinders is stripped quickly 
off and thrown aside. 

Not to Judge but to Save. 

There is need of greatest tact in expressing 
our preferences regarding these things among 
those who practise them. There has been in 
earlier generations, and not wholly gone yet, a 
rigidity of practice in some such things coupled 
with lack of a loving, earnest, consistent spirit. 
And the two have become fixed together in many 
minds. Truth has always suffered at the hands 
of some defending it. 

One should be very careful not to express him- 



222 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

self in such a way as to seem critical of another. 
The keenest criticism of wrong is a consistent life. 
We are not sent to judge the world but to save it. 
We are not sent to be critics of our neighbors. 
Each man is to be fully persuaded in his own 
mind. We are to presume that the other one has 
thought for himself and reached a conclusion; 
we should respect his opinions. So that while 
as occasion needs one should clearly make known 
his own thought and habit, it should be done 
with the tactful deference to others that love 
inspires. 

I glean this fine bit from a memorial of Dr. 
Maltbie D. Babcock, that rarely sainted, sane 
young minister who so moved the heart of New 
York the brief year he preached there : " He never 
hesitated a moment over questions of policy. 
Like Paul he held tenaciously to the doctrine of 
Christian liberty. But he had more delight in 
waiving his use of that liberty than in exercising 
it, if his use of it might in any way interfere with 
his usefulness. Knowing so well his native dra- 
matic power, and his great enjoyment of good 
comedy and tragedy, I asked him if he ever went 
to the theatre. 'Never.' Bearing in mind his 
delight in the best music, and his familiarity with 
many scores of celebrated compositions in opera, 
oratorio, and orchestral music, I said, * How about 
the opera? Do you ever go?' * Never.' Any- 
one who knew him well would not have to ask 
why. I knew it was Paul's reason. 

"But Mr. Trumbull, in the Sunday School 
Times, after Dr. Babcock left us, related two 



Problem of Questioned Things ,223 

incidents which explained and illustrated his 
reason, which I here quote. 'When lunching 
one day with some business men, Dr. Babcock 
was offered a cigar, and a hope was expressed 
that he would join the others in a social smoke. 
Instantly his face lighted up with one of his win- 
ning smiles, and he said to the speaker: "Thank 
you very much for your kindness. But you know 
I have a profession that means more to me than 
anything else in the world. I guard it very jeal- 
ously. I am liable to be called out at any time 
of day or night, in the service of my profession, 
and if I were called suddenly to the bedside of 
some one who was dying, it wouldn't seem just 
right, would it ? — if I had the odor of tobacco in 
my clothes and on my breath. So you will pardon 
me, won't you, if I don't join you in this?" 

" 'At another time one of the wealthier members 
of his congregation offered him the use of his box 
at the opera through the season, and instantly 
this reply came: "I can't thank you enough for 
the kindness you are showing me. But you know 
how a surgeon in practising his profession is 
not only obliged to keep his hands and linen free 
from dirt, but he must keep himself aseptically 
clean as well. Now, in my profession, I have to 
be even more careful than a surgeon, and so I 
must be careful about things that might do harm 
in even the most indirect way. You will under- 
stand, I know, why I cannot accept the great 
kindness you are offering me, though I do thank 
you for it from the bottom of my heart." ' " * 

1 " Maltbie Davenport Babcock. " By Chas. E. Robinson, D.D. 



224 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 

Here was the exquisite tact of a perfect gentle- 
man combined with the highest standard of con- 
duct. His service controlled in his life and ac- 
tions. Here is a great simple question suggested 
that goes at once to the very heart of this whole 
matter of questioned things : Should not service 
— thought for others whom we would win by both 
direct and indirect touch — control every one of 
us who belongs to Jesus Christ ? 

The Law of Love. 

There is a very simple law to follow here. It 
is Paul's law. He got it from the Holy Spirit. 
It is the law of love. It speaks thus : 

Whatever dulls the sensitiveness of my spirit 
towards God, or takes the fine, tender edge off my 
thought of Him must be ruled out, for He is my 
Lord. 

Whatever injures or weakens my body, or 
affects my mastery of it, must be ruled out, for it 
is the temple of my Lord. 

Whatever affects hurtfully the earnestness 
and clearness of my witness to Jesus Christ be- 
fore others must be ruled out, for it was His part- 
ing wish that I be a witness for Him to all men. 

Whatever lessens in any way, even through 
prejudice or misunderstandings, the results of my 
service must be ruled out, for to influence men 
for Him is to be the passion of my life. 

Whatever may cause my brother to stumble in 
his Christian life must be ruled out, for that would 
grieve Jesus. „ k . 



MAR 25 190V 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



